


SVS2-01: Eye of the Storm

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:05:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of strange murders leads Blair to explore the mystical realm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to wod for inviting me into the SVS, and to everyone at FiveSenses who provided such wonderful suggestions and discussion on this story. Also, I want to thank Jennie and ADM for going above and beyond the call of duty as betas. You rock, girls. :)

This story has been broken into two parts. 

## SVS2-01: Eye of the Storm

by Rushlight

Author's website:  <http://www.squidge.org/5Senses/>

The Sentinel Slash Virtual Season (SVS) is based on characters and concepts developed by, and belonging to, Pet Fly Productions. The episodes of SVS are intended for private, personal enjoyment only. No money is being made, or will be allowed to be made, by any of the SVS authors or by FiveSenses, Inc. from the writing and distribution of these episodes. Any original characters introduced in an SVS episode belongs to the episode author and to FiveSenses, Inc. and should not be used without their permission.

A Note from FiveSenses: Shamanistic traditions exist in many places around the world, and this story represents an amalgamation of many of their features. It is not intended to reflect a scholarly interpretation of the specific rituals of any particular culture.

Notes on Safe Sex: Episodes of SVS may contain depictions of consensual m/m sex. These depictions may or may not be accompanied by specific mention of items necessary for safe and healthy intercourse. It is the intention of FiveSenses, Inc. and all SVS authors that, even when such items are not explicitly mentioned, their use is to be assumed as a matter of course. All of us at FiveSenses, Inc. are aware of the risks of unprotected sex in today's world and strongly advocate the practice of safe sex, including the use of condoms and other protective devices.

This story is a sequel to: SVS-23: Question of Intent 

Author's E-mail: n_sanity75@hotmail.com 

Author's Webpage: <http://www.slashcity.org/~rushlight>

* * *

**EYE OF THE STORM -- Part One**  
by Rushlight 

**PROLOGUE:**

The night was not night anymore; that was the first thing he noticed. The sky was ablaze with a myriad of silver lights, brilliant against the black backdrop that stood behind them. And that blackness had form to it, and texture, and dimension... As if the night itself had come alive, and grown into something new, something extraordinary. It seemed a place where dreams could become real. 

This was a place he had been to many times before, at the edge of the jungle where the land met the sky. It was believed to be a place at the juncture of two worlds -- land and sky, earth and air. The delineation between the two was as sharp and unambiguous as that found on the earliest nautical maps, where the sea at the edges of the world fell away into an eternal abyss, marked only by the legend, _Here there be monsters_. 

He watched in silent awe as one of the stars detached from that great backdrop of living, breathing night and descended slowly to meet him. He lifted his face to it, feeling somewhat like a child trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue. That was the feeling he got from this place, that kind of innocence, and the thought made him smile slightly. Perhaps, after everything, it wasn't too late for him after all. 

_I dreamed of you_ , he said, and the fallen star shimmered in fond amusement, hovering like a 2,000-watt speck of brilliance in front of his face. Its light pushed back the darkness that pressed around him, and for a moment he thought he saw another, more familiar, form encased within it. 

_Of course you did_ , it said to him, and there was laughter in its voice. 

The comment brought with it a stab of remembered pain, and he looked away, unable to stand the brightness any longer. Around him, darkness and light mingled in dreamy ecstasy, and he thought about how well they complemented each other, how one could not exist without the other. 

_But did I do right_? he whispered. 

There was silence for a long while then, and he froze, waiting for the words that would condemn him. It was no more than he deserved, he knew, but even so, the pain cut deep. 

And then, with a soft flicker of starfire, the light replied. _Go find out_. 

There was no condemnation in the words, for which he was grateful. Only sorrow, and loss, and even that was chased through by an echo of quiet joy. Because he was here, finally, in this place that was end and beginning both. 

_Yes_ , he said, and he smiled, feeling an echo of that joy shiver through him. He lifted his face to the night once again, letting his eyes sweep over that glorious vista of star-filled sky, and knew that he had at last come home. 

And then there was nothing but the light. 

* * *

Jim felt a surge of something suspiciously like exhilaration move through him as he gazed down at the man sleeping naked beside him. The morning light that fell in through the clerestory windows was leaden with autumn, but it illuminated Blair's warm skin perfectly, bringing out the auburn and chestnut highlights in the long curls of hair that draped over the backs of his shoulders. 

It was moments like this that Jim wished he could store away into his memory forever, a mental snapshot that he could pull out whenever he needed it in the future. Blair looked so peaceful, lying here, tousled hair dark against his cheek, head resting lightly on the curve of an arm on top of his pillow. His lips were parted slightly, and they glistened with moisture in the dim light. Jim could hear him breathing, soft and rhythmic, harmony to the steady beating of his heart. 

There was really no question that Jim would bend down to kiss him. After a moment, Blair's lips began to move under his, and Jim let his tongue trail across that full bottom lip slowly, savoring the taste and texture he found there. With a sigh, he pulled away again, admiring the rising flush in his lover's cheeks. 

Blair's eyes opened slowly, hazy with sleep. He smiled when he saw Jim looking down at him. "Mmm," he said, and the thick timbre of his voice sent a shiver racing down Jim's spine. "G'morning, lover." 

He stretched like a cat, and Jim watched appreciatively, unable to resist the temptation to trail a hand across the smooth curve of ribs and skin in front of him. Blair rolled into the touch, leaning into him, and Jim's arms closed around him automatically. Blair's smile as he gazed up at him was impish. 

"Something on your mind, Jim?" he said lightly, and Jim chastised him with a small bite to the tip of his nose. 

"It's not nice to tease," he said, enjoying the feel of his lover's heart beating next to his own. He nuzzled down into the riot of untamed curls that spilled over Blair's shoulders and inhaled deeply, drinking in the scent of his mate. 

Blair's breath hitched, and his hand toyed idly with the short hairs at Jim's nape. "Who's teasing?" he whispered, and that was all it took for Jim to tighten his grip in the hair at the back of his head and kiss him. 

Blair tasted like dusk, like heat, as his body twined forward around Jim's, molding against him, and while his movements were still languid with the vestiges of sleep, there was no mistaking the intent of the hard heat that burned against Jim's thigh. Jim slid his nails down Blair's back just to feel that lean body buck against him, and he groaned softly in empathy as Blair's arms tightened around him, legs tangling tight around his thighs. 

"Love you," Blair murmured, and the words became one with the slow, sensual glide of skin against skin as their erections rubbed together, warming him. Jim nuzzled in against Blair's throat and sighed heavily. 

"Love you, too." 

Jim began to move a little faster, a little rougher, and Blair matched him for it, moaning slightly as he pressed his teeth against the side of Jim's neck. "God, that feels good," Jim whispered, and Blair bit him again, swiping his tongue across his sweat-slicked skin. 

"You taste good," Blair said, panting. "Smell good. Oh God, _Jim_..." 

God, it felt good to love like this, to be loved like this. Making love to Blair was like being devoured by a force of nature, like being caught up inside of something that was little else but heat and motion and heartfelt, irresistible need. Jim let it build slowly, refusing to hurry. Blair felt so good in his arms, so hot and lithe and deliciously slick where Jim's hands smoothed over his back. Sex sweat. Jim bent to lick at Blair's shoulder, loving the taste of him, the scent of him, the feel of him, and he spent a hazy moment drifting free inside the inexorable rhythm of their bodies, the sensuous slide of skin on skin, listening to the competing cadences of their heartbeats, two broken rhythms racing each other impulsively to collect their prize. 

Jim bit his lip as Blair made a series of small mewling noises against the side of his throat, his entire body tensing. That was all it took for Jim's body to follow; he felt the slow burn growing at the base of his spine suddenly explode through the center of him, startling a ragged cry out of him as his hips bucked mindlessly against Blair's. Blair clung to him, grounding him through it, and when it was over, Jim collapsed against the pillows, pulling Blair down to lie beside him. 

Blair's eyes were warm and sated as he gazed up at him, and he smiled, resting his chin on Jim's chest. "I think I need to go back to sleep for another hour now," he said, snuggling further in against Jim's side. As if to prove his point, he yawned hugely. 

Jim pushed the younger man's hair back away from his face affectionately. "I wish we could." He glanced at the bedside clock and sighed. "But I have to be in to work in an hour. And if I'm not mistaken, you have a meeting with your diss committee at eight-thirty..." 

"I know, I know." Blair grumbled good-naturedly and dropped a kiss onto Jim's lips, then shoved a pillow against his face as he crawled out of bed. Jim pushed the pillow aside and watched with an indulgent smile as his lover crossed the room toward the stairs. God, the man was beautiful, and there was absolutely no self-consciousness in him at all as he made his way naked down the stairs. 

If he let himself give in to the temptation to share Blair's shower, they'd never get out the door this morning. Sighing, Jim wiped himself off with an edge of the sheet, then pulled on his shorts and a T-shirt and padded down the stairs to start breakfast. He could already hear the water running down the hall, and the sound brought with it several delightful memories of hot water sliding over hot skin. The image brought an instant flush to his face, and he bit the inside of his cheek as he rinsed out the coffee maker and refilled the filter with fresh Maxwell House. 

Damn, but he had it bad today. The thought made him chuckle softly. Not that Blair Sandburg wasn't addictive on the best of days, but lately, Jim found himself taking advantage of every moment they had together. Now that the university was in full swing for the fall semester and resources were more readily available, Blair was spending more time on campus researching for his dissertation. It seemed that absence did indeed make the heart grow fonder -- and the body grow hornier. This time, the chuckle turned into an outright laugh. 

"Something funny?" Blair emerged from the hallway wearing nothing but a towel. His hair was damp around his shoulders, and the thick curls caught the light beautifully, creating a shadowy halo around his face. Jim stared at him for a moment before he was able to find the breath to respond. 

"Not really." He pushed himself away from the counter and walked around the central island, leaning in for a kiss. Blair's lips were warm and soft under his, even if his expression was puzzled. "I'm just thinking how much I enjoy spending time with you." 

The dark flicker in Blair's eyes said he was well aware of the direction Jim's thoughts had taken. He laid a hand against Jim's chest and spread his fingers, as if he were trying to soothe the soft rhythm of the heartbeat under his palm. "I know you do." He smiled. "I've just got the one meeting this morning, and then I'm going to spend some much-needed time in the library. I'll be at the station in time for lunch." 

The promise soothed Jim enough that he was able to let Blair go and take his own shower. The morning ritual was soothing, and as he went about his ablutions, he caught the sharp scent of burnt bagels and raspberry jam. The familiarity of it made him smile affectionately, filling him with warm feelings of health and comfort and home. 

As he dried himself off with one of the ridiculously expensive Egyptian cotton towels Blair had insisted on buying, he wondered why he felt so damned possessive of the man this morning. It was almost an ache inside of him, giving him the urge to keep constant tabs on him, as if Blair might shrivel up and disappear in a puff of smoke at a moment's notice. It made no sense, but the feeling was there regardless. 

He was still puzzling over the question as he made his way back out into the main room, knowing what he'd see before he got there. 

Sure enough, there Blair was, sitting at the table with his glasses perched on the end of his nose, poring over one of his journals and nibbling on the edges of a toasted bagel. A huge cup of coffee sat on the table in front of him, half-finished. The sheer normalcy of the scene brought a smile to Jim's face, and he felt the faint ache inside of him ease somewhat. Blair was here, and he was safe, no matter what his instincts were trying to tell him. Maybe it was just the new fall schedule after all. 

He got dressed hurriedly and then sat down across the table from Blair, digging hurriedly into his cereal and glancing surreptitiously at Blair as he did so. Blair was totally engrossed in his reading, which was certainly nothing new. But there was a line between his brows that Jim found strangely disconcerting, and the protective instinct flared in him again. 

"Is everything all right?" he asked, trying not to sound as if he were pushing. It was something Blair had accused him of before. 

Blair glanced up at him and smiled. "Just tired," he said, and punctuated the statement with a yawn. "I didn't sleep too well last night." 

"Why not?" Jim frowned, irrationally disturbed by the seemingly innocuous statement. 

Blair shrugged. "Bad dreams, I think." He turned back to his journal, apparently unconcerned. 

Jim's frown deepened. "What about?" 

"I'm not sure." Blair turned a page absently. "I'm not even sure they were really bad dreams at all. Just... weird ones." He glanced up at Jim over the rims of his glasses and grinned wryly. "I'm _fine_ , Jim." 

Irritated with himself, Jim let the subject drop. He didn't know why he felt so odd this morning. If he kept this up, Blair was going to be irritated with him, too, and that was something he definitely didn't want. So he polished off his Wheaties without another word and then got up to brush his teeth. When he came back into the living room, Blair was still reading serenely. Blair had at least another half an hour before he had to leave for Rainier. 

Jim reached for his holster on the rack by the front door and shrugged into it absently, still troubled without knowing why. Grabbing his coat, he bent to give Blair a good-bye kiss. Blair smiled up at him, looking utterly beautiful, dark eyes and dark hair and dark sweater combining to give him a deliciously decadent look that Jim found intensely appealing. He growled low in his throat and nipped playfully at the side of the younger man's jaw. 

Blair laughed, pushing firmly against his chest to propel him toward the door. "Go. Now," he said, but there was deep-rooted pleasure in the words. "Or you're going to be late." 

Jim grinned at him as he turned to leave. "I'll meet you at the station for lunch," he said as he ducked out the door. It helped immeasurably with his strange sense of restlessness to see Blair in such a good mood, and he let that carry him out when he honestly would have preferred to stay. 

Even so, the feeling never truly went away. 

* * *

Blair smiled to himself as he finished stuffing his notebooks into his backpack and double-checked to make sure he had his cell phone and keys. Jim was being his endearingly overprotective self this morning, which would have annoyed him at one point in his life. Now, however, it was just another of those traits that made Jim _Jim_. It was actually kind of flattering in a way, that Jim would consider him territory worthy of being defended. Even against bad dreams. The thought made him chuckle softly with affectionate amusement. 

He whistled as he made his way down to the parking lot, bypassing the elevator in favor of the stairs. The sun was struggling admirably to shine through the thick screen of clouds that covered the sky, giving the morning light a grainy cast. A cool breeze lifted his hair against his cheek, warning of the winter to come, and Blair pushed the recalcitrant strands behind his ear absently, looking around the lot reflexively before making his way toward his car. 

Halfway across the parking lot, he stopped. The wind stirred again, rustling a loose page of newspaper at the edge of the street. For some reason, he felt inexplicably exposed suddenly. The feeling was an uncomfortable tightening in the muscles of his back, and he glanced around uneasily, not understanding where it came from. 

It was disconcerting that there didn't seem to be anyone else out and about this morning. Aside from the occasional car that passed by on the street, he was completely alone. Still, the feeling remained, and it had progressed up to prickle the skin at the back of his neck now. 

"Get a grip, Blair," he told himself firmly, not liking the uncertain waver he heard in his voice. 

Hooking the fingers of one hand under the strap of the backpack on his shoulder, he started toward his car again. He was almost there when he was stopped again, this time by a low growling behind him. 

Tensing, he whirled, his heart pounding. His eyes probed the aisles between the cars for a frantic moment before he allowed himself to relax. 

"There's nothing there," he said aloud, taking some degree of comfort in the sound of his voice. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. There was nothing there, he reminded himself. Nothing there at all. 

Nevertheless, he found himself crouching down to peer into the thick shadows that pooled underneath the cars around him. 

He waited for another moment, but the growling did not repeat. Blotting damp palms against the front of his jeans, he forced himself to walk the rest of the way to his car without looking back. His fingers were shaking when he fit the key into the lock. 

He was just tired. Yeah, that was it. He tossed his backpack onto the seat beside him as he slid into the car, feeling immeasurably grateful when the door closed behind him. His hands were still shaking when he gripped the top of the steering wheel. 

The parking lot of 852 Prospect stretched out before him in silence, not a car out of place. 

What the hell was wrong with him? One night of bad dreams didn't warrant this kind of paranoia. Feeling vaguely disgusted with himself, Blair threw the car into gear and pulled out onto the street. 

Some days it just didn't pay to have his brand of imagination. 

* * *

"Ellison! Would you come into my office, please?" 

Jim looked up warily from the paperwork spread out on his desk, sharing a brief glance with Megan. When Simon actually bothered to be polite, it meant there was trouble brewing. Stifling a sigh, he shuffled the sheaf of papers back into the folder they'd come from and stood to face down the lion in its den. 

Simon was leaning back in his chair when Jim stepped into his office, rubbing tiredly at his eyes with one hand. His glasses were lying on the desk blotter in front of him. 

"Sir?" Jim said, closing the door behind him. 

Simon reached for his glasses and slid them back onto the bridge of his nose. His expression was dark when he met Jim's gaze. 

"There was a murder last night," he said, "that looks like it may be ritualistic in nature. I want you and the kid to check it out. The call just came in; forensics should be on the scene by the time you get there." 

"Blair's got an appointment at Rainier this morning." Jim frowned as he accepted the report Simon handed him, flipping open the yellow folder easily. "Forty-six-year-old professor of anthropology," he said, reading aloud. He glanced up at Simon again, feeling a vague stirring of unease. "Wife found him in their home this morning?" 

Simon nodded, looking grim. "Take Joel with you, then." His tone sharpened. "And try to keep things under wraps. The last thing I need is another damned serial killer running unchecked through my city. This whole thing's going to turn into a media circus if you're not careful." 

Jim smiled dryly. "Gotcha." He could understand Simon's concern; murders with a ritualistic bent rarely showed up alone. Tucking the folder under his arm, he went out in search of Joel. 

It didn't take long to drive out to the moderately attractive tract neighborhood where the victim had been found. As Simon had predicted, there were several cars on the scene already, including the coroner and Serena's dark-windowed van. 

"It's kind of eerie, isn't it?" Joel commented as they made their way up the front drive. 

Jim glanced at him curiously. "What is?" 

"I don't know... _this_." Joel gestured helplessly, and Jim followed his gaze, taking in the neat rows of autumn-hued trees standing sentry along the street, the well-manicured front lawns, the young girl standing on her front porch at the house next-door and gazing at them with wide eyes as they passed by. 

"Yeah," Jim said at last, tearing his gaze away. "Eerie." It all seemed so _normal_ , as if there hadn't been a violent loss of life somewhere within their midst. 

The interior of the house was a scene of carefully controlled chaos. Jim's attention was immediately caught by a young woman sobbing desperately where she sat on the couch in the living room, attended by two awkward-looking men in uniform who appeared to be trying to take her statement. She didn't look a day over twenty-one. 

"Grieving widow?" Jim guessed. 

Joel frowned. "Looks like it. You want to talk to her?" 

"Not yet." Jim noticed Serena and made his way over to her. "Hi, Serena," he said, unable to keep the faint note of despondency out of his voice. Murder scenes were not known for their joviality. "Where's the body?" 

Serena smiled wearily at him in greeting and gestured toward an open door at the other end of the room. "In the den. It looks like he fell asleep at his desk last night. The wife says that's not unusual, but when she found him this morning, he was dead." 

"Cause of death?" Jim's attention was drawn once again to the widow. She was truly distraught; while domestic partners were usually the first to be suspected in a murder investigation, he had his doubts as to whether it would prove a fruitful line of inquiry in this case. 

"I don't know." There was a furrowed line between Serena's brows. "A more accurate answer will have to wait until the autopsy, but as of right now, we don't have a clue. No obvious wounds on the body, no forced entry into the residence. All the doors and windows were locked. I'd be tempted to classify it as a suicide, myself, if it weren't for the markings on the body." 

Joel's frown deepened. "What markings?" 

Serena's eyebrow rose, and Jim had to bite back a snort of laughter that had very little humor in it. "What do you say we go find out?" he said, and Joel nodded. 

There were more cops packed into the expansive den, and the air was heavy with murmuring voices and camera flashes and the unmistakable presence of death. One wall of the room was nearly filled with tall windows that looked out over the back yard, and Jim stood for a moment at the threshold of the room, watching the wind shiver through the branches of the trees outside. 

The victim's name was Pete Sowers. He was still seated in the chair at his cherry wood desk, head and arms sprawled haphazardly across the top as if he truly had just fallen asleep as his wife claimed. His sandy hair looked tousled above the crisp collar of his shirt, but that could easily be his usual late-night dishabille and not the result of a struggle. One hand was cupped palm-up on the desk in front of his face, as if in supplication. 

Jim approached the body slowly. He could hear Joel's startled gasp behind him, along with a whispered, "What the hell..." 

It was a sentiment that Jim agreed with wholeheartedly. Every visible inch of Sowers' face and hands was painted in a bizarre tapestry of symbols that were vaguely reminiscent of fancy calligraphy, colored in varying shades of blue and red. Jim crouched down beside the desk, peering at the odd markings curiously. He let his senses explore the scene as much as he dared without Blair beside him, but could detect nothing that would offer a clue to the identity of the murderer. 

"What do you think?" Joel asked, hovering behind him. "Poison?" 

"I don't know." Jim narrowed his eyes, shifting his attention to Sowers' hands. There was something almost... elegant... about the markings. Definitely not the work of a madman. Or if it was, it was the sanest madman that Jim had ever seen. "I wish Sandburg were here to take a look at this." 

"Yeah, me too." Joel leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look. "Looks almost like some kind of language, doesn't it?" 

It did. The thought made Jim uneasy for some reason, and he thought again of his forebodings from earlier that morning. 

Abruptly, he pushed away from the edge of the desk and stood, startling Joel into backing hastily away from him. "Come on," he said, more gruffly than he'd intended. "Let's go talk to the wife." 

Joel gave him an odd look, but didn't comment on his sudden shift of mood. "Sure, Jim," he said, casting one last look at the body before following him out of the room. 

Jim didn't look back at all. 

* * *

Blair gave a frustrated sigh as he sat down at the table where his notes and books were scattered, having just been reminded of the reasons why he hated microfiche so very passionately. He felt as if he was going to need a new prescription on his glasses from peering at the characters on that dark little screen, and he had absolutely nothing to show for it. Feeling vaguely depressed, he picked up his pencil and crossed off yet another avenue of study on the research notes in front of him. 

A sudden breath of silence behind him made him raise his head curiously. Around him, the library raged in its usual quiet way, filled with a scattering of students going busily about their work. Some were sprawled across the low couches by the windows, reading, while others moved back and forth from the long aisles of bookshelves to the study tables to the bank of computers that stood against the far wall. Blair let his eyes pass over it all, wondering what had caught his attention. It was virtually identical to the setting he'd seen every other time he'd been here. 

Shrugging, he turned back to his notes. A few more minutes passed, marked only by the faint scratch of his pencil in his notebook and the low murmur of voices that rose comfortingly around him. But then the feeling hit again, stronger this time, and he threw his pencil down in irritation. 

"What the _fuck_ ," he hissed under his breath, turning to cast his gaze over the room suspiciously. His heartbeat was starting to escalate, although he couldn't have said why. It was like in the parking lot earlier that morning, fear without any explainable cause, and it was starting to get on his nerves. Determinedly, he closed his eyes, trying to gain control of the adrenaline that was suddenly coursing through him. 

That was when he heard the soft growling again, so close it could have come from right beside him. Startled, he turned to face it, his eyes going wide when he saw a dark shape standing next to him. Feeling his heart begin to pound almost painfully, he lifted his gaze slowly, trying not to see the tall, slim form standing in front of him, the black curls that spilled down over the woman's shoulders, dusky skin, smart clothes, eyes dark in the near-expressionless face... 

Janet. Oh God, oh Jesus, it was Janet. 

Janet, who had died when he and Jim were investigating the murder of a representative of Cyclops Oil, long before the dissertation fiasco. Janet, who had risked and then lost her life in an attempt to bring an end to the atrocities being committed in her company's name. 

Janet, whom he had seen buried over a year ago. 

With a horrified cry, he sprang away from the table, sending his chair tipping backwards and skittering across the carpeted floor as the light went dim around him. Janet just continued to stand there, watching him, but that was _impossible_ , she couldn't be here, couldn't be standing here, oh God oh God now she was reaching for him what was happening how could this be real and what the hell was he supposed to -- 

"Blair?" 

A hand on his arm made him jump back in shock, bumping his hip against the edge of the table painfully. The shock of it shuddered through him, and he cried out sharply, his heartbeat racing. He blinked, feeling disoriented as his vision focused again, and saw one of the kids from the Anthro 101 class he'd taught last year standing in front of him. Tina, his brain supplied for him, right on cue. Her name was Tina. 

Tina, not Janet, not a ghoul risen from the grave come to get him. 

Tina was looking at him anxiously, her expression one of mild bewilderment, and that struck him as so inexpressibly funny that he had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from laughing out loud. He was quite sure that the laughter would have a ring of hysteria to it if he let it escape. 

"Blair?" she said again, tipping her head to one side quizzically. Her fingers hesitantly reached out to brush over his arm again. "Are you all right?" 

Blair glanced around uncertainly, looking for any sign of further disturbance and finally allowing himself to relax when he found none. Slowly, he got his breathing back under control, beginning to feel just a little bit foolish. Tina was small, petite, with carrot-orange hair and a lightly freckled nose -- nothing at all like Janet. God, how could he have thought he'd been seeing Janet instead of her? Just where the _hell_ had that come from? 

"I-I'm sorry." His voice was shaky, and he clutched the edge of the table for a moment to steady himself. He glanced around, feeling the heat of the curious eyes around him for the first time, and blushed heatedly as he bent down to pick up his chair from the floor. "I-I think I've been working too hard. Or something." He forced a small laugh, deliberately turning his back to the gawking stares around him. "You know how it goes." 

Tina gave a hesitant smile. "Do I ever," she said, and he was suddenly, overwhelmingly grateful to her for letting it go so easily. 

She stayed for a moment to ensure that he was all right, and after chatting for a short while, she turned to go. As soon as she was out of sight, Blair collapsed back into his chair and rubbed a hand over his mouth distractedly. 

He was still shaking. 

Just what the hell was wrong with him? Just what in the _hell_ was going on? 

He took another few minutes to get his composure back before turning to pack all of his things back into his bag. There was no way he was going to be getting any more studying done this morning. And right now, all he really wanted was to be with Jim. 

Snatching up his coat and shouldering the strap of his backpack, he left. 

* * *

He was well on his way across town when he pulled out his cell phone to call Jim. 

Jim answered on the second ring, and there was a steady susurration of traffic noises in the background. "Ellison." 

Blair almost melted at the sound of the familiar voice. "Hey," he said, forcing a brightness into his voice that he was far from feeling. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything." 

"No, of course not. Joel and I are just on our way back in from a crime scene." Jim sounded honestly pleased to hear from him. After a moment, however, his voice lowered and he said, "Is everything all right?" 

Damn those Sentinel senses anyway. Blair sighed, shifting in his seat uneasily. "I'm fine, Jim. I just wanted to let you know that I finished studying a little earlier than I'd anticipated, and I'm on my way to the station." He paused to change lanes before speaking again. "So what's the crime du jour?" he asked, wanting to change the subject. 

"Murder," Jim replied, and Blair could hear the frustrated growl in his voice. "A weird one. Are you any good at locked-room mysteries, Chief?" 

Blair laughed, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off of him. Talking to Jim was therapeutic that way. "I don't know. We'll have to see when I get in, I guess." 

"Yeah, well I can really use your help on this one." The words sent a little frisson of pleasure skittering down Blair's spine. "There's something I want you to take a look at." 

"Okay, Jim. I should be at the office in just a few minutes." 

Jim sounded relieved. "I'll meet you there." 

Feeling immeasurably more cheerful now than he had when he left the library, Blair turned up the radio and hummed along to his favorite songs as he traversed the final few miles to the police station. He pulled into the parking garage and left his car in one of the visitors' slots, noticing that Jim's truck was still absent from his parking spot by the elevators. Apparently Blair had made it here first. 

"Hi, Blair," Rhonda greeted him as he stepped into the bullpen. Blair smiled and waved at her as he slipped past the knot of detectives standing by the door and made his way toward Jim's desk. 

He took great pleasure in sitting down in Jim's chair and leaning back with his feet propped up on a half-open drawer, tossing his backpack down on the floor beside him. This kind of casual assault on the furniture was something Jim would never allow if he were here, and there was a certain illicit pleasure in getting away with it now. The thought made Blair grin slightly as he caught Rafe's amused glance from across the room. 

Wadding up a smudged sheet of copy paper, Blair tossed it toward the wastebasket beside the desk and cheered inwardly when it went in without brushing the rim. God, he was tired. And he really could not wait to see Jim. He just felt so _strange_ today, the brief panic attack in the library notwithstanding. 

When he heard the low growling again, it almost made him fall out of the chair. _Shit_. The sound made him break out into an almost instantaneous sweat, and he pushed his hair back away from his face slowly, deliberately not turning around. Tensing, he eased his feet down to the floor, refusing to give in to the slow-crawling horror that was beginning to burrow its way under his skin. 

What the fuck was going on, anyway? It didn't make any sense, and he'd be damned if he was going to let whatever this was get control of him again. 

Clinging to his anger as if it were a shield, Blair swung around in the chair and rose to his feet. His eyes probed the shadows that stretched between the desks anxiously, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The growl sounded again, deeper this time, more insistent, and he moved toward it, ignoring the way the hairs were standing up along the back of his neck. 

It felt odd, tracking a noise he wasn't even sure he really heard. He kept his head down as he walked, looking into each shadowed nook and cranny among the desks and tables, lifting his head to gaze out across the empty office occasionally, seeing nothing. And was that right? Hadn't this place been bustling with activity just a moment ago? The thought made him feel suddenly cold inside, and he spun slowly, feeling panic grip him. He was completely alone here, and there were far more shadows than he remembered, dark, blue-tinged shadows that played tricks with his vision and left him panting when he tried to wrestle a grip on his emotions. Just what the fuck was going _on_ here... 

The growl sounded again, closer this time, and he whirled to face it. His heart was racing, and it took him a moment to notice the small shape tucked away at the edge of the room, watching him. 

It was a fox. Its fur was pale silver shaded over black, like moonlight on water, and he spent a moment just drinking it in, feeling a sense of unreality move through him. The animal's hackles were raised, small teeth bared, tiny black eyes gleaming almost blue in the shadows. 

Blair stepped toward the creature warily. The only sounds in the room were those of the fox's low growling and his rapidly pounding heart. 

"I don't understand," he said softly, and it struck him as strange that it didn't seem at all peculiar to talk to the animal in this way. Everything felt unreal suddenly, or too real, and he didn't understand any of it. "Please, help me understand." He extended one hand slowly. 

Without warning, the fox darted forward and bit into the fleshy part of his hand. Blair fell back with a cry, more startled than pained by the attack. Those teeth were small, but they were needle-sharp, and he looked down at his hand dazedly, watching the blood well up from the neat semicircle of puncture wounds there. He held his wrist tenderly, sliding a thumb over the wound, smearing the blood there, feeling dazed. He didn't know what was happening, didn't understand what was going on, and then a hand touched his shoulder and he whirled to face it, heart _pounding_ , and... 

And it was Jim. Blair blinked, overwhelmed by the suddenly bright lights in the room, by the bustle of activity around him. Jim was holding onto his arms, supporting him. 

"Are you all right?" Jim asked, looking concerned. Joel was peering over Jim's shoulder at him, looking equally worried. 

Blair was still clutching his wrist. He glanced down and saw that there was no wound on his hand, no blood, nothing. He flexed his fingers tentatively and glanced back at the corner of the room. The fox was gone. 

"Blair?" Jim said again, sounding scared now. His fingers were almost painfully tight around Blair's arms. 

That was enough to snap Blair back into focus. He looked up again, seeing the concern shining in Jim's eyes. "I-I'm fine, Jim." Now _that_ was certainly no way to ease Jim's fears. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "I'm fine. Really. I just feel a little dizzy --" 

Jim's frown only deepened at these words. Holding up a hand to forestall any further explanation, he sent Joel away with a few hastily murmured words of reassurance. Then he guided Blair gently back to his desk and eased him down into the chair, ignoring the concerned looks being cast in their direction. 

"Sit down," he said curtly, but there was hidden affection in the words. "Before you fall down." Blair obeyed, still feeling shaky, and watched as Jim went to fetch him a cup of water from the dispenser near the door. The line of tension between the older man's shoulders was unmistakable, and Blair sighed deeply, rubbing at his eyes. 

"Here." 

Jim's voice had softened considerably in the intervening moments since he'd gone to fetch the water, and Blair glanced up at him gratefully, pleased that his hand wasn't shaking when he reached for the cup that Jim handed to him. He took a long sip, his eyes going half-lidded as he savored the coolness of it. "Thanks." 

"You mind telling me what that was all about?" Jim was leaning his hip against the edge of the desk now, arms crossed over his chest. Despite the bravado, he looked deeply concerned; nothing unnerved him quite so much as seeing his usually self-assured partner come undone. 

Blair ignored the question for a moment while he considered how to answer, taking another sip of his water. "I don't know, man," he said, shifting his gaze away uncomfortably. He shook his head, not wanting to talk about it. "It's just... weird." He was desperately afraid that Jim wouldn't let him ride along today if he thought there was anything wrong with him. And Jim had said that he needed his help. 

It looked as if Jim was going to press him further, but just then Joel appeared again, his normally boyish face looking haggard. "We've got another one, Jim," he said, and his eyes were as serious as Blair ever remembered seeing them. "Same MO. The cleaning lady at the residence just called it in; it looks as if he was killed earlier this morning." For some reason, his gaze shifted to Blair when he said it. 

Jim didn't say anything for a moment, but Blair could see the muscle in his jaw working. Feeling suddenly frustrated, he pushed to his feet and met Jim's gaze squarely. "I'm fine," he said firmly, which wasn't an out-and-out lie. Not really. Because he _did_ seem to be fine now, even if he hadn't been a few moments ago. "And I'm coming with you. You said you needed my help on this one, remember?" 

Apparently Jim did remember, because the stubborn set of his jaw relaxed slightly, and he nodded. "Okay. But I want you to take it easy if you start feeling sick again." The look in his eyes said clearly that they would discuss this later. In detail. 

Blair acquiesced without protest, and Jim touched him lightly on the small of the back as they left the room. Such a casually protective gesture, it might have been missed by most. But Blair noticed, and it warmed him. 

It made some of his own fears dissipate, and he leaned against Jim's side discreetly as they waited for the elevator to arrive. The look that Jim favored him with then was filled with concern and affection, and it was almost enough to make Blair forget that he might be losing his mind. He smiled, wishing he had the nerve to steal a kiss. 

Then the elevator dinged as the door slid open, and it was a relief to turn his thoughts away from his own problems as he concentrated on the business at hand. 

* * *

Dr. Thomas Eisner was chair of the sociology department at Rainier. He resided on the outskirts of the city in an old, colonial-style house that would have looked out of place anywhere on the west coast aside from Cascade, Washington. As it was, the structure blended in with a kind of rustic charm that was not entirely manufactured, shouting in its understated way about the wealth and good taste of its erstwhile owner. 

The body was lying on an upstairs bed, fully clothed with its hands folded serenely over its chest. Vacant eyes were open and staring up at the ceiling -- _doll eyes_ , Blair couldn't help but think -- and the face was framed by a thick mane of silvery dark hair. The face and hands of the corpse were adorned with an intricate array of swirling designs, painted in garish blue and red. 

Blair thought that there was something indescribably horrible about the sight of him. Disregarding the jarring presence of the colored markings on the body, Eisner looked almost disturbingly normal. As if he were going to stand up at any moment and go about his business. 

Swallowing thickly, Blair stepped closer to the edge of the bed. He was well-used to ignoring the presence of the forensics team and crime scene photographers that swarmed around any murder scene, but it was still difficult to cross the room unimpeded by the crush of bodies diligently combing the room for clues. He really wanted to get a closer look at the figures scrawled on the corpse's face and hands; he had a feeling this was the reason Jim had wanted him here. 

As soon as he recognized what he was looking at, he sucked in his breath, feeling intrigued and unpleasantly surprised. Looking back over his shoulder, he said, "Jim, these are shamanic symbols." 

Instantly, Jim was at his side. "What do you mean?" he said, his brow furrowing. He glanced down at the corpse irritably, as if he were holding it personally to blame for all of their current woes. 

Blair shook his head. "I'm not sure. But these aren't just random scribblings. They have _meaning_ , if you want to call it that." 

"What kind of meaning?" 

"I don't know." He bit at his lower lip in frustration. "I'm not exactly fluent in shamanic lore, even if I have been paying it special attention for the past few years. I'm going to have to do some studying." He glanced up at Jim curiously. "Who was the victim this morning?" 

Jim hesitated, then said, "Pete Sowers." 

Blair could feel his eyebrows trying to climb toward his hairline. "In the cultural anthro department?" He frowned, feeling a twinge of uneasiness move through him. His eyes slid back toward Eisner's corpse. "I think I'm detecting a pattern here, Jim." 

"Yeah." Jim didn't sound at all happy about it. 

Blair looked up at him again. "Well, how about it, then?" he said, lowering his voice. "Are those fabulous senses of yours picking up anything unusual?" 

Jim's gaze went unfocused for a moment as he swept over the scene, and Blair touched his arm lightly to ground him without even having to think about it. After a few moments, Jim shook his head in frustration. "No, nothing." 

Blair couldn't help the faint tug of disappointment he felt. "Which means that either we're dealing with a ghost, or someone who's just very good at covering his tracks." 

He expected to at least get a smile out of it, but Jim's expression remained grim. "There's something strange about these murders, Chief -- I mean, beyond the obvious. I've had a really bad feeling all morning." His hand moved to rest protectively on Blair's shoulder, and Blair leaned into it, letting the tacit comfort seep into him. 

"Yeah, me too." Blair refused to admit just how deep his bad feelings had run. He turned back to the body again, his eyes drawn irresistibly to the colored markings on Eisner's face and hands. 

And wondered why the sight of them should make him feel so very cold. 

* * *

The afternoon light was trapped behind a thick screen of grey clouds when they met with Simon to go over the facts of the case. Despite every intention to keep the media unaware of the situation, the van for KCDE News had been on the scene when Jim and Blair left. Jim had avoided them like the plague, even as he wondered just where the hell they found their sources. 

The conference room seemed uncomfortably large for just the three of them today, but Jim didn't allow it to visibly bother him as he slid the open file folder on the case across the table toward Simon. 

"The autopsy on Sowers failed to reveal a cause of death," he said, rather pleased that none of the frustration he felt was seeping through into his voice. Blair was a warm and familiar presence at his side. "We're still waiting on Eisner. Both crime scenes have been swept through by forensics, but they couldn't find anything on the bodies or at the scenes to help identify the perpetrator." He paused, biting back a surge of irritation at this next confession. "And neither could I. Whoever this guy is, he's _good_ , Simon. There were no signs of forced entry into the residences found. In the first victim's case, the house was sealed up tight when the murder was committed, although there was a spare key hidden outside that could account for it. No prints on the key, except for Sowers and his wife. That doesn't have to mean anything, though -- there were no fingerprints inside, either. Chances are, our killer was smart enough to wear gloves." 

Simon gave him a dark look. "So what you're saying is, we have absolutely no clue what happened to those two men." 

Jim hesitated only slightly. "That's about the size of it, sir." 

Simon harrumphed, seemingly unimpressed by this assessment. "What about the markings that were found on the bodies?" 

"Forensics has classified the substance used as an oil-based pigment with primarily natural extracts. The ingredients to make it could be found just about anywhere in the world." And now a twinge of disappointment _did_ show up in Jim's voice; he'd been hoping that this, at least, would give them some clue as to their anonymous murderer's identity. 

Blair leaned forward across the table then, pointing at the glossy crime scene photos that Simon had laid out in front of them. "The most telling thing is the markings themselves," he said, either not seeing or else completely ignoring the impending thunderstorm in Simon's expression. "These are symbols used in the ritual traditions of Africa, mainly in Tanzania. Basically what it amounts to is a... a sort of ritual dishonoring of the enemy. So that anyone who comes across the body will know that the poor guy had committed some great atrocity that brought the tribe's spiritual warriors down in force against him." 

Simon stared at him blankly. "Spiritual warriors?" 

"Yeah." Blair was really warming to his subject now; he leaned forward in his chair, eyes intent as he shaped the words with sharp gestures of his hands. "They're fairly common in a number of different cultures around the world. Holy men, medicine men, spiritual guidance counselors... Whatever you want to call them, it's their duty to look after the spiritual health of the tribe. You know, making visits to the spirit plane, defending the tribe from spiritual attack, that sort of thing." 

"You mean shamans." Simon didn't look at all happy with this explanation. 

Blair nodded, seeming somewhat uncomfortable at the appellation. "Uh, yeah," he said, shifting his gaze away. 

Simon frowned, sharing a glance with Jim. "So what does that mean, exactly?" 

"We're not sure." Jim sighed heavily. "But one thing we've found out is that both Sowers and Eisner were on the same expedition to Africa this past summer." 

"Africa." Jim could practically see the wheels turning as Simon mulled this over in light of what Blair had just told them. After a moment, Simon leaned back in his chair, eyeing him thoughtfully. "So who else was on this expedition?" 

Jim pulled a folded piece of notebook paper out of the inner pocket of his coat and slid it across the table, having anticipated the question in advance. "Blair was able to look into the university records and find out for us. Apparently there were eight team members from Rainier, along with several support personnel native to the region they were visiting. They came back from the trip with a very lucrative cache of new artifacts, which are presently being stored at the Natural History Museum. Right now they're taking bids from around the country for several of the pieces, for quite an impressive sum." 

Simon picked up the paper and glanced briefly over the list of names Jim had scrawled there. "I don't suppose we know where any of these people are at the moment?" 

"Well, that's the really odd thing," Jim said. "Three of them left the university towards the end of the summer, and we're still trying to figure out where they might have gone. The others are all signed on at Rainier for the fall semester." 

"One of them, Mike Townsend, is a friend of mine from my undergraduate days," Blair added, shifting uneasily in his seat. "He's a TA at the university, and he'll be teaching a class later this afternoon. I'm hoping he'll be willing to talk to me, if there is something going on that we should know about." He sounded uncomfortable with the thought that his friend might be involved in anything less than completely lawful. 

"Yeah, well just make sure you keep an open mind about it." Simon leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes underneath his glasses, sighing tiredly. "And try to keep the media presence under control. I'm still waiting for the call from the Commissioner tonight when he sees Eisner's body being loaded into the coroner's van on the five o'clock news." 

Jim was grateful when Simon finally let them go. He didn't enjoy having his investigations raked over the coals at the best of times, but he was resigned to having his every movement held under scrutiny in high profile cases such as this one. 

There was one thing still bothering him, however. 

"Blair," he said, catching up to the younger man at the elevator after he stopped to drop off the case file at Rhonda's desk. Blair looked unusually harried, although Jim might not even have noticed if he didn't know him so very well. 

"Yeah?" Blair didn't meet his eyes as he stepped into the elevator, dancing lightly to avoid the crush of bodies that were making their way out. 

That immediately set off a whole clamor of warning bells in Jim's mind. "Would you mind telling me what that was all about back there?" 

"What do you mean?" 

Damn, but Blair could be a cagey son of a bitch when he wanted to be. Jim found himself grinding his teeth and made a conscious effort to stop it. Fortunately, they were the only ones in the elevator as he pushed the button for the basement level. 

"I mean that as soon as Simon mentioned shamans, you completely shut down back there." He studied the other man's profile carefully, keeping track of the slight increase in respiration, the elevation in heartbeat, the faint sheen of sweat that sprang up underneath his hairline. "What's going on, Blair?" 

Blair glanced at him ruefully, obviously realizing that it was a lost cause to attempt to hide from Sentinel senses. "It's nothing, Jim, really. I've just been having kind of a weird day." He chuckled slightly, apparently amused at his own reaction. "Simon mentioned shamans, and it got me thinking of Incacha. That's all." 

Jim eyed him suspiciously, not sure whether to take the explanation at face value or not. Blair was more than capable of spinning a line of very impressive bullshit when he felt the occasion warranted it. 

He thought about the brief panic attack he'd witnessed in the bullpen earlier that morning. Why would Blair lie to him if there was something seriously troubling him? Was he afraid that Jim wouldn't let him help out on the case if he felt there was something wrong with him? 

It was a valid concern, Jim had to admit. There was no way in hell he'd allow Blair to participate in this investigation if he knew it was troubling him more than normal. The thought made Jim uneasy, but there was really nothing to be done about it now. He needed Blair to help interview Mike Townsend; if there was any chance that the guy would open up more with his old college buddy than with an official police presence, they had to take it. 

But that didn't mean he had to like it. With a dark look, he let Blair know in no uncertain terms that they would be discussing this later. Blair only smiled at him and leaned in for a brief kiss before the elevator doors slid open. 

Blair was perhaps the only person in the entire world that Jim was unable to intimidate. 

Stifling an indulgent grin, Jim followed him out into the parking garage. No matter the prevailing circumstances, he had to admit that he was very glad to have Blair here with him. 

* * *

Blair couldn't hide the smile that rose on his face the moment he saw Mike's familiar form at the front of the classroom. Students were still trickling out into the hallway, and a few were hanging back to ask questions or jot down a final few notes from the lecture. Blair waited until the last of them were getting ready to leave before he went inside and made his way down the shallow steps to the front lectern. 

Mike Townsend was tall and lanky, with dark brown hair and a grace that was vaguely reminiscent of a professional dancer. He was shuffling a sheaf of papers into a dark brown leather satchel when Blair approached him. As soon as Mike noticed him, his eyes brightened, and the smile that lit up his features was a rival for Blair's own. 

"Blair Sandburg," he said, and there was a note of honest awe in his voice. 

"Hi, Mike," Blair replied, leaning forward to hug the other man tightly. Mike slapped him on the back with an enthusiasm that almost took his breath away. "Long time no see." 

"I'll say. How's the diss coming along?" 

"Oh, it's coming." Blair made a face, knowing that Mike had to be well aware of the drama that had surrounded his expulsion and subsequent readmission to the dissertation program. "How about yours?" 

Mike grinned, pushing the fall of dark hair out of his eyes with the fingers of one hand. "You know me, Blair. Drag out the process till I've milked the last drop. I might be graduating sometime within the next hundred years." His eyes suddenly flickered up to look at Jim where he hovered behind Blair's shoulder. When he turned back to Blair, his expression was rueful. "I take it that this isn't just a social visit, though." There was an implied question in the words. 

Blair tried to ignore the shiver of guilt that passed through him, and he glanced back at Jim briefly. "You might have heard that I've been working as a consultant to the police department," he said, deciding to cut right to the chase. "This is my partner, Jim Ellison. We're in the middle of a murder investigation, and we were hoping you could give us some information about the trip you took to Africa over the summer." 

Something indefinable changed in Mike's posture then, although his expression remained the same. "Murder investigation?" he echoed. "Who's been murdered?" 

Blair hesitated, not quite sure how the news would be taken. "Dr. Eisner," he said, "and Pete Sowers." 

Mike leaned back against the table behind him, his eyes widening. "Shit." 

"Yeah." Blair felt a twinge of pity for his friend. He hadn't known either of the deceased men well, but he knew how strong the bond could grow between the members of a research expedition. "We're trying to chase down any leads that might connect the two of them. Did anything unusual happen over the summer while you were in Africa?" 

"No." Mike shook his head, his gaze dropping toward the floor. He fiddled with the pencil on the desk beside him nervously. "Nothing. I mean, we dug for artifacts, spent some time living with the locals, but that was about it. I know there's been some pretty heavy wrangling over some of the pieces we brought back with us, but it's just your everyday bureaucratic free-for-all." His expression was distraught when he looked up again. "Jesus, Blair, do you really think someone killed them?" 

"Yeah, I do," Blair said seriously, holding his gaze. 

"Anything you could tell us would be helpful to the investigation," Jim said, capturing Mike's attention. His tone was low and serious, utterly professional and non-threatening. "Did anyone make any threats against you while you were there? Did any members of your expedition get into a conflict with any of the locals? Anything that might have seemed innocuous at the time, but might not look quite so harmless in hindsight?" 

Mike chewed on his lower lip for a moment, but then he shook his head. He glanced at Blair uncertainly. "I'm sorry. I wish I could help you guys, but there's really nothing I can think of to tell you. The whole trip went pretty much by the book." 

Blair met Jim's gaze again and sighed. He rummaged around in his backpack for one of the business cards he always carried around with him, using a pencil to scribble down his address on the back. He handed it to Mike, who accepted it numbly. "Look, Mike, if you think of anything, or hear anything, will you get in touch with me? Any time, all right? And if you need to talk, maybe we can go out for some beers later." 

Mike nodded, still looking vaguely shell-shocked. Blair gave him a last comforting touch on the shoulder before he turned to leave. 

Jim trailed behind him as he made his way out into the hall. "He's lying," Jim said quietly, without meeting his gaze. 

Blair glanced up at him irritably. "Even I can tell that, Jim." The thought disturbed him. He didn't want to think of his friend involved in anything remotely criminal, especially not something as twisted as this case was turning out to be. 

Jim let the subject go, much to Blair's relief. Next on their list was Dr. Tommy Chan, a part-time professor in the anthropology department and present darling of the anthropological society for research that he'd done on the interior cohesion of certain tribes in Brazil last fall. Word was that he could pretty much write his own ticket as far as funding went, but Blair knew from experience that such good fortune was apt to be short-lived. 

Chan wasn't scheduled for a class that morning, so they ended up driving out to the neighborhood where the professor's home was located. As Jim parked the truck in front of the tall, white-walled house, Blair noticed that there was a dark blue SUV parked in the driveway. 

"Looks like he's home," he commented as he followed Jim up the slope of the driveway to the front door. 

There was no answer when Jim knocked on the front door, however. He shared a glance with Blair and shook his head slightly. "I don't hear anyone inside." 

Blair couldn't stop the small tremor of unease that moved through him at that. "Jim, I've got a really bad feeling about this." 

Jim nodded, his expression darkening. They knew from the university records that Chan lived alone, so there would be no one to know if he had run into any sort of trouble. Drawing his gun from underneath his jacket, Jim gestured toward the side of the house. 

Blair shadowed him closely as they moved around the side of the building. Around them, the afternoon suddenly darkened, and he glanced up to see the sun dipping behind yet another interminable bank of clouds. A sudden chill gripped him that had nothing at all to do with the temperature of the air. 

The yard behind the house was expansive, dotted with a number of fruit-bearing trees and circled by a ring of low shrubbery. A broad porch stretched out at the rear of the house, shaded by several tall trees that stood nearby. 

Jim paused for a moment, sweeping over the area around them with an intensely focused expression. Then he put his gun away and turned to Blair with a dark look. "There's someone on the back patio," he said. 

Blair wrestled with an intense feeling of foreboding as he followed Jim up the slight incline of the hill toward the stairs. He knew what he expected to find when he got there, and he wasn't disappointed. Nevertheless, he couldn't help reacting slightly with a muffled, "Oh, God," and turning away for a moment to get a handle on his rampaging nerves. 

Chan was lying on a lawn chair on the back porch of the house, dressed in light grey sweats and running shoes. It looked as if he had been reading a book when he died, and the pages still fluttered in the cool breeze where it lay half-opened on the chair beside him. Again, there was no obvious cause of death, making it look as if he had only fallen asleep for a short time. He was young, maybe in his late thirties, and his handsome Oriental features were fixed in an expression of sublime peacefulness. 

The effect was marred by the jarring presence of the blue and red designs scrawled over his face and hands. 

"What the fuck is going on here, Jim?" Blair couldn't keep the slight ring of panic out of his voice. No matter how many murder scenes he visited, they never ceased to disturb him deeply. Though he supposed that if there was ever a time when this sort of thing _stopped_ bothering him, it would be time to give up this line of work for good. 

"I don't know." Jim knelt down to examine the body more closely, being careful not to touch anything. "Are these the same markings as on the others?" 

Blotting his damp palms against his jeans, Blair leaned down to get a closer look. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "They're the same ones." 

He let his eyes trail over the colorful designs, drinking in each individual curve and line. It really was a work of art, and it said disturbing things to him about the individual who would have taken the time to paint them so meticulously on Chan's dead or dying flesh. 

The sun had broken out from behind the clouds again, and its brittle light fell down through the trees around them. The dry autumn leaves rustled in the wind, sounding uncomfortably like whispering voices, and Blair felt a shiver of apprehension move through him that he couldn't explain. The branches cast an odd mosaic of shadows over the porch, a shifting pattern of darkness and light where the sunlight showed through, changing with the shift of the leaves in the wind. 

Blair stared, feeling his heart rate begin to increase. The wind lifted his hair against his face, but he ignored it. He felt dizzy suddenly, and while he could hear Jim talking to him, he couldn't quite make out the words. The soft flicker of shadow and light across Chan's body captivated him, and he watched it with a sense of deep foreboding, not understanding the sudden feeling that gripped him but fearing it nonetheless. There were patterns in the leaves, and patterns in the shadows -- and never the same pattern twice, because the wind never went through the same way twice. The light was almost blinding, but it was almost completely obscured behind the shadows, and the patterns... the patterns, they... 

He swayed, clutching at the railing of the porch for support. The light seemed to dim abruptly, and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision against the dull roaring that rose in his ears. The body on the chair seemed to consume his vision, and he couldn't look away, no matter how much he wanted to. His palms were sweating, his breath quickening, and he was suddenly clutched tight in the grip of a horror so profound that it left him reeling. The worst part of it was that he didn't know _what_ he was so terrified of, and the yard was continuing to dim, it was filled near to bursting with blue-flocked shadows, and his breath caught frozen in his throat as he saw that _Chan's body was beginning to move_... 

He fell back away from the chair with a strangled cry and turned to run, knowing only that he had to get away from there before something irrevocable happened to him. He collapsed against the side of Jim's truck and almost fell, but Jim was right there, strong arms moving around his waist to catch him. 

"Blair! Goddamnit!" There was real fear in Jim's voice. "What happened? What's wrong? Damn it, will you _talk_ to me?" 

Blair struggled to get his breathing back under control and managed to stop himself from hyperventilating. Even so, the fear continued to pound through him, making him feel physically ill. 

"I'm going crazy, Jim," he whispered, hearing the panic in his voice and not caring. He stared up at Jim with wild eyes, shoving the back of his fist against his mouth for a moment to keep the screams inside. "I-I keep seeing dead people, and hearing things, and... and..." 

His voice broke on a sob, and Jim pulled him close, holding him tightly in a crushing hug regardless of who might be watching. "It's all right, Blair," he said, running a hand over the back of Blair's hair, and Blair felt the violent tremors wracking through him begin to decrease. He closed his eyes and snuggled in against Jim's chest, grateful for the arms that enclosed him, the warm breath that shivered past his ear. No matter what was happening to him, he had no doubt that he and Jim would be able to work it through together. 

Jim pulled open the door of the truck, and Blair allowed himself to be eased carefully inside. Jim pulled out his cell phone, and Blair only half-listened as Jim reported their latest discovery, enjoying the feel of Jim's hand massaging comfortingly into his thigh. 

"Look," Jim said as he put the cell phone away again, "I want you to wait here. I need to go have a look around before the forensics team gets here." 

Blair felt a spike of panic at the thought of being left alone, but he viciously beat the feeling down. "Jim, I can't let you --" he began, knowing even as he said it that Jim would be able to hear the frightened stutter of his heartbeat. 

Jim cut him off with a glance. "I'll be fine, Chief. If I need anything, I'll holler, okay?" 

Blair felt guilty for leaving Jim to conduct the investigation alone, but he knew that Jim was right; there was no chance he'd be of any use at this particular crime scene. Just the memory of Chan's body was enough to give him a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. 

He sighed, slumping against the back of the seat in defeat. "Just be careful." 

Jim nodded, reassuring him with a touch. "I'll just be a few minutes. Just sit tight until the reinforcements get here, all right?" 

Blair tried to ignore the fierce thundering of his heart as he watched Jim leave, his tall form disappearing with agile grace around the side of the building. Sliding his legs all the way inside the truck, Blair closed the door of the cab and then locked it, without knowing exactly why he did so. It certainly didn't make him feel any more secure. Resting his forehead against the cool glass of the window, he waited anxiously for any sign of Jim. 

Was he losing his mind? The thought was terrifying. What was left for him if he couldn't trust his own perceptions? Memories flitted across his mind from his brief stint at Conover, unpleasant recollections of men and women so caught up within the terrors of their own imaginings that they couldn't tell the difference between reality and fantasy. The thought made him shudder in horrified rejection of the idea. No. No way in hell was that going to happen to him. 

He never took his eyes away from the side of the house where Jim had disappeared, and it startled him when the dark-windowed forensics van pulled up in front of him. He stared, watching the van disgorge its horde of investigators with a feeling of vague detachment, unable to completely lose the feeling of dull horror that beat like a second heart within him. 

He was absurdly grateful when Jim finally reappeared and climbed into the cab beside him, and he was even more grateful when Jim pulled him across the length of the seat to lean against his side. Blair closed his eyes again, just soaking up Jim's presence, content to let Jim hold him while he wrestled with the demons dancing through his head. 

"Did you find anything?" he asked after a moment, feeling some of his panic begin to fade now that Jim was here with him again. 

Jim sighed heavily. "Not a thing," he admitted darkly, his breath ruffling Blair's hair. Blair clung to him, feeling a surge of disappointment that bordered on despair. He'd held some small hope that having Jim go over the scene before the forensics team arrived would give him more of a chance to find evidence of the murderer's identity. Blair's respect for their elusive opponent ratcheted up a notch. 

After a moment, Jim released him long enough to slip the key into the ignition and start the truck. Then his arm moved back around Blair's shoulders, holding him tightly while he pulled away from Chan's house and back out into the street, maneuvering carefully around the numerous police vehicles that had arrived over the past several minutes. 

"Whatever's going on, we're going to beat it, Blair," he said, and it was the only acknowledgment he made of what Blair had told him about the hallucinations that were plaguing him. Yet another thing to be grateful for, Blair thought, and he smiled tightly, resting his head comfortably on Jim's shoulder. The warmth of Jim's body seeped into him, a hard, dependable reality at his side. 

Despite the comfort he found in Jim's presence, however, Blair couldn't help but notice that the sun had slipped behind the clouds once again. He tried not to think that it might be an unpleasant omen for what lay ahead. 

* * *

Concluded in [Part Two](svs201eye_a.html)

Text version of part two: http://www.squidge.org/archive/cgi-bin/convert.cgi?filename=2/svs201eye_a 


	2. Chapter 2

This story has been broken into two parts.

## SVS2-01: Eye of the Storm

by Rushlight

Author's website: <http://www.squidge.org/5Senses/>

All notes in Part One

* * *

**EYE OF THE STORM -- Part Two**  
by Rushlight 

Jim looked down at the young man lying shivering under the blankets of their bed with a worried frown. He sat there in silence for a long while, brushing the curls back off of Blair's forehead tenderly. They were so soft and springy that they bounced right back whenever he moved his hand away, and loose strands clung to his fingers as if reluctant to let him go. 

The light outside the windows was fading fast. He had brought Blair directly home after the incident at Chan's house, and had reluctantly left him alone while he called Joel and asked him to finish hunting down the members of Eisner's team. Blair had steadfastly refused any suggestions to see a doctor, insisting that all he needed was to get some rest. Grudgingly, Jim had given in to the request, and it was with no small amount of relief that he found the younger man resting peaceably when he came back upstairs. 

He honestly didn't expect that any of Eisner's team members would talk to Joel, not after seeing the way Mike Townsend had refused to confide in Blair. Even so, it was an avenue that had to be explored. Three of the scientists they couldn't locate at all, and he was rather hoping that no more dead bodies would turn up before morning. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" he said at last, smoothing his hand again over the hair at Blair's brow. He could tell by the sound of the younger man's heartbeat that he wasn't sleeping. 

Blair's eyes opened to stare up at the ceiling blankly, and he shifted slightly at the sound of Jim's voice. The thick blankets were pulled up to his chin, covering him almost completely, which gave him a disturbingly vulnerable look that Jim was having a hard time coming to terms with. 

"I don't know what's happening to me," Blair said, and his voice was almost a whisper. "Jesus, Jim, I think I'm losing my mind." 

The worst thing about the words was the almost inflectionless tone they were spoken in. As if Blair had absolutely no emotional stake in their meaning whatsoever. 

"Tell me," Jim said, hoping that the quiet encouragement in the words would convince Blair to open up to him. 

At Jim's insistence, Blair began to tell him about the things he'd heard and seen since that morning, all in that same dull, quiet monotone. Jim listened with growing alarm to the accounts of half-heard noises and free-floating anxiety, hallucinations of deceased friends and attacks by silver foxes. When Blair finally finished, Jim had to fight down the wave of bald-faced panic that rose within him. 

What was going on here? No wonder the kid had lost it. Jim trailed a hand over his face and tried to think, listening to the rapid pounding of his own heart. Could this be some kind of latent brain damage from the drowning incident that was only now showing itself? The thought chilled him. That wasn't really possible, was it? Sure, Blair had been without oxygen for an unheard-of amount of time, but that was more than a year ago. If there had been any serious damage, they would have seen signs of it before now. Wouldn't they? 

He let out his breath in a long sigh. "Do you think it could have been a vision?" he asked. It was certainly something they'd both had experience with before. 

Blair frowned thoughtfully. "I don't know. What I saw... it seemed threatening. I've never had a vision like that before. And that fox..." 

"Maybe that's what's threatening you." Jim stubbornly clung to the possibility no matter how farfetched it seemed. It was, after all, far better than the alternative. 

But Blair shook his head. "I got the impression that it was trying to get my attention," he said. "There's something... else... out there, Jim. In the shadows of those dreams I've been having. Something that knows I'm here, and knows I'm not a threat to it. But it's watching me." 

Jim was unsettled by the quiet conviction in Blair's words, and by the near-vacant stare of his eyes. "You should get some sleep," he said softly, refusing to show how very scared he felt. Blair was half-asleep already, his eyes closing, a troubled furrow etched between his brows. 

Jim straightened the blanket around Blair's shoulders before going downstairs to start some tea water boiling. God, how he hated feeling this helpless, this powerless, and as usual, that helplessness translated itself into an impotent fury that left his insides aching. 

His only consolation was the promise he made to himself that somehow, he was going to find out who was fucking with his Guide. 

And then he was going to even the score. 

* * *

Blair was standing in the middle of a forest. Around him, branches hung heavy with dripping screens of dark green moss, giving him a claustrophobic feeling. It was night, and the shadows that clung to the tree trunks were thick and brooding, dark in a way that had little to do with the absence of light. Overhead, a pale light filtered down through the leaves of the trees, corpse-white, but it did nothing to dispel the shadows. 

He knew without having to look that there was something there in the darkness, watching him. 

He was standing on a narrow trail, and ahead of him, he saw a silver fox. It looked luminescent in the darkness, starfire and moonfire all rolled up into one, somehow powerful for all its lack of stature. He stared, not understanding the feelings that were coursing through him. 

"Help me," he said to the fox. His heart was pounding, but he felt strangely calm. "Help me to understand." 

He watched in awe as the animal morphed into the shape of an old woman, dark-skinned, brittle-boned, with wise black eyes that reminded him of the fox. 

"You must choose your destiny, little wolf," she told him. "It will not choose you. You may be put on the path and shown which direction to go... but only you can make the decision to follow it." 

Blair shook his head slowly, clenching his fists at his sides. "I don't understand," he said, glancing around at the shadows desperately. They seemed to be drawing closer around him, and they were thickening. "What do I have to do?" 

When he looked back again, the old woman was gone. Only the fox was there, looking up at him with wise, bright eyes, and then it turned with a flick of its tail to run forward down the trail. 

"No, wait! Stop!" Blair took a step after it, feeling panic grip him. He didn't want to be left alone here, surrounded by the darkness, and he flailed for a moment, panic-stricken, lost and terrified and begging her not to leave him alone... 

He opened his eyes to see Jim staring down at him. Jim's hands were tight around his arms, too tight, and Blair was aware suddenly of being shaken, and of being tangled almost painfully inside the grip of the sheets that covered him. 

"Jim?" he whispered, reaching for the hard body above him, clinging to it in the midst of the uncertainty and fear that closed around him. He felt like a drowning man struggling to hold onto the one thing that was keeping him from dropping down beneath the waves. 

"You were having a dream," Jim said to him, and he slid a hand over Blair's sweat-soaked brow, brushing the tangled hair out of his eyes. His eyes were impossibly blue in the darkness. "Just a dream, Blair. You're not alone, baby. Not alone." 

Jim's voice was unsteady, and Blair wondered just how long Jim had been trying to wake him up. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, glancing around at the night-darkened bedroom around them. 

The moon had not yet risen, so there was very little to interrupt the inky flow of darkness around them. The sight made him uneasy, so he quickly turned back to look at Jim again, admiring the familiar features that looked down at him and slowly relaxing, muscle by muscle, into the other man's touch. 

And suddenly he was very much aware of the heat and the solidity of the body above him. Jim was still holding onto him, although his grip had relaxed somewhat over the past few moments. Blair shifted restlessly, feeling a familiar warmth begin to coil deep in the pit of his stomach. 

"Jim," he said again, and before he could even think to put his request to words, Jim was kissing him. 

Oh, yes, this was exactly what he needed. Jim's tongue in his mouth, Jim's fingers in his hair, Jim's body rubbing down hard against him. Blair was in ecstasy, and he impatiently kicked off the sheets that confined him, wanting to feel as much of Jim as he possibly could. He returned the near-violent kiss with an equal passion, wrapping his body tight around Jim's and gasping at the searing heat that seeped into him from the other man's skin. 

Jim groaned low in his throat and reached for the hem of Blair's shirt, mouthing down across the slope of his neck and sinking in his teeth in passing. Blair gasped softly and did what he could to help as Jim pulled the clothes off of him. Jim was already naked, and Blair spared a thought to be thankful that Jim had helped strip him down to boxers and T-shirt before he'd fallen asleep last night. After only a few moments' tussle, he hissed in unadulterated ecstasy at the hot, silken feel of Jim's skin against his. 

"God," Jim whispered against his hair, and then he was kissing him again. Blair gave in to the kiss eagerly, hungrily, wrapping arms and legs around the agile body above him. Jim's erection was a delicious heat against his own, and he bit into Jim's shoulder to hold back the cry that wanted to escape at the teasing pressure that danced against him, aching through him in shivers of delightful friction. 

As delicious as it was, however, it wasn't what he wanted. With a surge of determination, he pulled out of Jim's embrace and rolled over smoothly, rising up onto his elbows against his pillow and baring his back to Jim. 

He felt more than heard Jim's low moan. Blair shivered when he felt warm fingers slide across his back, touching him almost reverently, and then that feeling was compounded when the fingers were joined by lips and tongue. He sighed, dropping his head forward bonelessly, as that slick heat traced the ridges of his spine. His hips began to make small circular motions against the mattress completely against his conscious will, grinding his impatient erection into the softness of the sheets. 

"Please," he whispered. 

Jim's breathing was uneven as he reached for the bedside drawer. Blair spread his legs eagerly so Jim could kneel between them, and his breath hitched as he felt Jim get into position behind him. Jim's palm was warm and slightly callused as it slid over the slope of his ass, and Blair raised his hips to it reflexively, smiling at Jim's low chuckle at his reaction. 

The coolness of the gel as Jim's finger touched him was a shock, as it always was, but he arched into it with a deep sigh, tipping his head back and shivering at the feel of his hair sliding unrestrained across the backs of his shoulders. Jim murmured soothingly to him, and Blair drank in the soft words hungrily, feeling himself begin to drift free of his body as Jim's fingers stroked into him. 

And then Jim was gripping his hip with strong fingers, and Blair clenched his hands in his pillow, making a low sound of discontent as Jim's fingers slid out of him. Jim bent to drop a kiss on the small of his back, soothing him, and the faintly moist exhalation of his breath against the overly sensitized skin was almost more than Blair could bear. 

Blair rose up onto his knees at Jim's urging, and then he was biting his lip as Jim's body slid up to cover him. Jim's chest was a furnace of heat against his back, and Blair arched up into it helplessly, fists kneading the pillow under his head. 

"Shh," Jim said to him, sliding a hand down his side to calm him. His breathing was labored, leaving hot, panting breaths across Blair's ear. 

Blair moaned faintly at the touch and rubbed his cheek up against Jim's, loving the solid heat of the body that covered him. God, he loved it when Jim took him like this, made him crazy like this, as if there were nothing else in the world but the two of them, and the need that burned and raged like a fire within him. He dropped his head down onto his folded arms as he felt Jim shift behind him, and he spread his thighs even further apart, welcoming the gentle intrusion that he could even now feel pressing against his body's entrance. 

It was like being filled with pure heat. Blair arched his back, moaning long and soft while Jim pushed into him. He was panting now, dizzy with arousal, his erection a near-painful weight between his legs. Jim's chest slid against his back, slick with sweat as their bodies moved together, and the initial discomfort faded after only a few moments to be replaced by pure, liquid pleasure. 

They paused for the barest of moments to catch their breath, and then Jim began to move. Blair inhaled sharply as Jim touched the spot inside him that he loved, and as the sounds he made began to grow in volume, Jim reached for his hands and threaded their fingers together, holding him in a near-punishing grip. Blair clung to him helplessly, riding the wave of the pleasure that tore through him, listening to Jim's own needy sounds echoing in his ears. Jim's movements were strong, taking his breath away, and when Jim released one of his hands to reach for Blair's swollen erection he nearly screamed aloud. 

"Oh God, yes," he gasped, and he bucked his hips up unconsciously, driving himself further back onto Jim's length. The resultant pleasure dragged a moan from him, and Jim nipped at the side of his jaw with a low groan, lapping at the pooled sweat there with his tongue. 

"Come on, baby," Jim whispered. "Come on, Blair." He punctuated the words with even stronger movements of his hips, driving Blair forward into the mattress, and Blair clung to him, all but sobbing into his pillow as Jim's hips pounded against his ass. 

"Yes," he hissed, mindless with pleasure, his entire body straining for the release that Jim was promising him. He could feel rivulets of sweat making their way down the sides of his ribs, tickling him, and he wasn't sure if they came from his body or from Jim's. He moved his hips frantically, matching Jim's rhythm, praying that Jim's hand would grip him just a little bit tighter and all but combusting on the spot when Jim obeyed the unvoiced request, showing an unerring empathy with his Guide's needs that Blair would have found fascinating if he'd had the presence of mind to think about it. 

This time he _did_ scream, as the world seemed to white out around him in an explosion of blinding pleasure. His body bucked helplessly up against Jim's, who abruptly stiffened above him. Jim's rhythm broke as his fingers tightened almost painfully around Blair's hand, and he groaned loudly, clinging firmly to Blair as he rode the wave of his orgasm. 

When it was over, they collapsed onto their sides in a sweaty tangle of limbs and knotted sheets. Blair blinked up at the ceiling for a long moment, watching the shifting patterns of the streetlights there as his breathing slowly returned to normal. 

After a moment, he felt a soft kiss press against the slope of his shoulder blade. Turning his head, he saw Jim gazing up at him from where he lay bonelessly on the pillow beside him. 

Blair smiled, feeling a surge of love so fierce it almost brought tears to his eyes. "Thanks," he said, rolling onto his side so that he could curl up around the other man. 

Jim chuckled tiredly. "Any time," he answered. 

Blair sighed happily as he felt Jim's arms move around him, pulling him close. He snuggled closer against Jim's side and rested his head on the other man's chest, feeling warm and sore and well-used and loved, and enjoying every moment of it. He could already feel himself beginning to drift off to sleep as Jim's breathing evened out beneath him. 

He felt confident that this time, there would be no dreams. 

* * *

The phone rang just before dawn. Blair peeled open his eyes reluctantly, listening to Jim's voice murmur in the background as he tried to convince his recalcitrant body that it was time to start the day. 

Burnt orange sunlight spilled into the loft through the clerestory windows, barely bright enough to chase away the gloom. Blair yawned hugely and pushed himself up to a sitting position, wrapping the thick comforter tight around his shoulders. 

Jim's expression was grim as he hung up the phone. "That was Simon," he said, and the weariness in his voice sent shivers racing down Blair's spine. "There's been another murder." 

Blair closed his eyes, feeling a pang of something indefinable move through him. "Mike?" he asked, barely recognizing the sound of his voice. 

"No." Jim reached out to touch his arm, rubbing gently. "Richard Jeambey." Jeambey was a history professor at the university who specialized in ancient civilizations. 

Blair let out his breath in a heavy sigh, trying not to feel guilty because he was so very glad that it hadn't been his friend. 

"Are you going to be okay here if I go?" Jim's tone was uncertain. 

Instantly, Blair straightened, raking his fingers back through his hair. "Sure, Jim, I'll be fine." Which may or may not be true, but he couldn't expect Jim to sit around and nursemaid him all day. And he certainly didn't feel up to going to another crime scene. "I'll hang out, watch some old videos, that sort of thing." 

Jim looked unconvinced, and Blair had to admit that that was partly his fault because he hadn't been straight with Jim about the visions from the beginning. "You'll call me if you start having any problems?" 

"I promise." Blair held his gaze evenly. "Now, go. Catch bad guys. Do your John Wayne imitation and then come home to me." 

Jim's expression melted into one of honest affection as he leaned forward to steal a lingering kiss. Blair felt a shiver of happiness move through him as Jim wound a finger into a curl at the side of his face, a curiously tender gesture that set his heart thumping. One more quick kiss, and then Jim was getting up to head for the shower. 

Blair listened to him go, trying not to give in to the sudden, irrational fear of being alone. 

He was lying curled up in bed when Jim came up to say good-bye. Blair put on his game face then and assured Jim that he was just tired, knowing full well that there was nothing the other man could do for him right now. He peered down through the metal bars of the railing when Jim left, wincing as the door clicked shut behind him. 

Maybe it would have been better if he'd gone in to Rainier this morning. It had to be better than lying here, staring at the walls. But experience had already proven that Rainier was no protection against the visions, or whatever the hell they were. And he really _was_ tired. Whatever was happening to him, it was beginning to take a physical toll. 

He actually managed to convince himself to take a shower and grab a quick breakfast before the sun got too serious about its climb through the eastern sky. Afterwards, he settled onto the couch dressed in a loose T-shirt and a faded pair of cutoff jeans, knowing that he wasn't planning on going out today. It was kind of an indulgence to dress down and laze around the apartment without having anything pressing to do, and he decided that he was going to take full advantage of it. 

He was lying sprawled out on the couch watching old reruns of _I Dream of Jeannie_ when he heard a knock on the door. Instantly, his heart rate skyrocketed, and he glanced at the door uneasily. Had he really heard what he thought he'd heard? He'd been doing good so far this morning -- no visions, no hallucinations, no visitations from beyond the grave. It made him nervous that he couldn't seem to trust his own perceptions. 

The knock sounded again, and he almost physically shook off the mood. He'd be damned if he was going to turn into a prisoner in his own home. Drawing some degree of strength from his anger at the situation he'd found himself in, Blair unfolded from the couch and stalked toward the front door before he could change his mind. After all, what was the worst thing he could find there? Another deceased friend from his past? A horde of angry forest animals come to devour him? The righteously indignant girlfriend that he'd cheated on in the ninth grade? 

The absolutely last thing he expected to see was Mike. 

Fighting off his initial stunned reaction, Blair hastily shut the door so he could slide off the chain lock and then ushered Mike inside. Even as he invited Mike to have a seat in the living room and asked if he wanted anything to drink, his mind was cataloguing the subtle clues to his friend's emotional state: the slight flare of nostrils, eyes that showed just a bit too much white around the edges, hair that looked as if it had had fingers raked through it one too many times. He'd dressed hastily that morning, it seemed, in jeans and a white _Metallica_ T-shirt, as well as the ubiquitous dark leather jacket that Blair remembered from their undergrad days. 

Mike turned to face him without bothering to sit down. "I heard about the latest murder on the news," he said, folding his arms around his chest and looking rather like a tall, skinny kid who had seen one too many late-night horror flicks. His eyes shifted nervously, drinking in the details of the room around him. 

Blair nodded, stepping forward to touch Mike's arm and physically guiding him to the couch. "Well, you've come to the right place," he said, keeping his voice low in an attempt to counteract the other man's rising anxiety. He sat down on the couch and was relieved when Mike unwound enough to sit beside him. "Now, why don't you tell me what's going on?" 

Blair had doubts as to whether Mike even heard him. "I didn't want to believe it," he said, sounding almost as if he were talking to himself. He dropped his gaze to the floor and settled his hands over the tops of his thighs, clenching them nervously. "But it's really happening. He's coming after us, one by one. They're almost all gone now -- Eisner, Jeambey, Chan..." He shuddered, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as if to block out the images that the words brought to life for him. 

"It's okay," Blair assured him, trying to ignore the slow beat of fear that moved through him at the dull certainty in the other man's voice; Mike's panic seemed to be contagious. "You'll be safe here. We'll put you under police protection, and no one will be able to get to you." 

Mike shook his head and laughed bitterly. "It's too late for me, Blair -- I've already seen him in my dreams." Blair was still trying to puzzle over this rather odd statement as he continued, "You can't protect me. But I want... I need to tell you what happened this summer. I mean, what _really_ happened." He met Blair's gaze uncertainly, and there was an air of subdued defeat around him that made Blair feel inexplicably sorry for him. 

Blair took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, leaning back against the corner of the couch. "What happened?" he asked. 

Mike's expression was strangely desperate as he met Blair's gaze. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way, Blair, I swear to God. Eisner's the one who authorized the dig; the rest of us were just along for the ride. I didn't know when I left that the villagers in the area hadn't consented to it." 

"Wait a minute." Blair held up a hand to stop the tirade, staring incredulously at him. "You mean you went on a dig _without the residents' permission_?" 

Mike nodded, clenching his jaw miserably. "I didn't know, Blair. I swear I didn't know. It was all Eisner's doing, and Jeambey's. Jeambey said that he'd work with his contacts at the museum to make sure we got top dollar for whatever we found. Chan and Sowers were the ones who arranged transport, and distribution later on." He gave a small, bitter laugh. "The rest of us were just grad students out to collect some field experience." 

"But you went along with it." Blair couldn't help the low note of anger that crept into the words. 

"It was supposed to be harmless," Mike said, dropping his gaze to the floor again. His hands were shaking. "No one was supposed to know." 

Blair ran a hand over his mouth and looked away, taking a few seconds to get his emotions under control. "Okay," he said after a moment. "So what happened?" 

Mike let out his breath in a harsh sigh. "It was the final day of the dig," he said. His voice was haunted. "It was raining like all hell had broken loose; you know how storms are in that part of the country. Eisner wanted to get the tarps pulled by sundown so we could leave on the next flight home. Damn it, Blair, it was all supposed to be so _simple_. Just get the artifacts and get out, and no one would have been the wiser." He shook his head in disgust at his own stupidity, and Blair kept silent, waiting for him to continue. 

"What we didn't know was that that one of the tribesmen had followed us." Mike wrapped his arms around himself again, staring down at the floor with a vacant expression, as if he were seeing the scene play out in front of him all over again. "His name was Johan Mantashe; I'd met him when we first arrived in the village. He... he confronted us at the dig, told us that this was an ancestral burial ground, that we weren't supposed to be there. He was... he was furious. And these aren't simple people, Blair -- they may live in the jungle, but they send their sons off to school at the universities in Dodoma. They know about legal rights and land ownership and fucking official channels of complaint to the American Embassy." His voice was thick with bitterness. 

Blair stared at him, feeling a cold dread coil deep in the pit of his stomach. "What did you do, Mike?" 

Mike closed his eyes and pressed his fingers hard against his eyelids, as if trying to erase the memories even as he continued to describe them. "Eisner tried to reason with him, talk to him, but he wouldn't listen. God, Blair, it was raining so hard, it was like being in the middle of a fucking typhoon. Johan was yelling at us, telling us to get off of his people's land, and he... he stepped too close to the edge of the dig. It was raining so damned hard, and the ground was already unstable from the excavation, and it turned into a mudslide under him. He was... he was buried alive." 

Blair was horrified. "Oh, my God." 

"We... we had to leave him there, Blair." He looked up again, wide-eyed. "I didn't want anything to do with it after that, but... but Eisner said that we'd already got the artifacts so we might as well take them." He was almost hyperventilating now. "Jesus, Blair... We didn't do it on purpose, I swear. I swear it. It was just one of those freak storms, and the ground gave way, and then he was just... he was just _gone_..." 

"You didn't even try to dig him out." Blair felt numb. He pushed his hair back away from his face with both hands, trying to get a handle on the tremors that wanted to wrack through him. After a moment, he collected his thoughts sufficiently to say, "But that doesn't explain what's happening now. What's going on, Mike? Who's killing the members of your expedition?" 

A shiver of fear crossed the self-flagellation in Mike's eyes. "Johan had a younger brother named Lucien," he said, picking distractedly at the thread of the cushion beside him. "Lucien was a holy man in their village. They say he studied under one of the greatest shamans in the region, and that when she died, she named him as her successor in the tribe." He shook his head slowly. "I never really believed in any of that hocus pocus mumbo-jumbo, but he has... gifts, Blair. Powers that I don't understand." 

Blair stared at him, feeling a shiver of apprehension move through him. "You think that's who's coming after you?" 

Mike smiled grimly and completely without humor. "I think baby brother wants revenge." 

It was enough, and Blair found himself halfway to the phone before he even consciously realized his intention to move. He snatched the handset off the cradle and punched in a number from memory with shaking fingers, glancing back at Mike where he sat hunched into the corner of the couch. Mike looked forlorn, lost, as if he already counted himself among those who had met with Lucien's vengeance. 

Jim picked up almost immediately. "Ellison." 

"Jim," Blair said, knowing that Jim would be able to hear the rapid pounding of his heart. "I think you'd better come home." 

* * *

Late afternoon sunlight spilled in through the windows of the loft with a leaden gleam, softened by the steely fingers of the rain that pattered gently against the balcony outside. Blair listened to it absently where he sat at the kitchen table, taking a sort of distant comfort in the sound. 

"How are you holding up?" Jim's voice was soft. He touched Blair's hair lightly, pushing it back away from his eyes as he sat down beside him. 

Blair smiled at him, inhaling appreciatively as Jim handed him a cup of his favorite tea. "Fine," he said, surprising himself when he realized that it was more or less true. He glanced over at the couch where Mike was sitting, studying the hard profile of his friend's face as he stared out the window at the rain. 

"At least we have an idea of who we're looking for now." Jim kept his voice low. "That's got to count for something." 

"Yeah." Blair glanced down at the composite sketch in front of him, fighting back the shiver that wanted to work its way through him at the sight of it. 

They'd spent the morning down at the station so that Mike could give his official statement, and he'd also agreed to sit down for a session with the police artist. Now there were copies of this picture circulating among every police officer in the city. 

The thought did not comfort Blair as much as it might have. 

Lucien looked to be a young man in his mid- to late-20's, tall and slender, with ebony skin and dark brown eyes and a face that looked as if it hadn't smiled in quite some time. There was nothing overtly threatening about him, but Blair couldn't suppress the small tremor that passed through him each time he looked at the picture. It was irrational, but he couldn't help feeling as if he _knew_ this man. He knew for a fact that he hadn't met him before, but still, the feeling remained. 

It had been Jim's idea for Mike to come back to the loft with the two of them. The others from the expedition were being picked up for questioning, and he hoped that having Mike as the only accessible victim might make Lucien act precipitously before the police could close in on him. The thought made Blair distinctly nervous, even if there were plainclothes cops on the street outside and in the foyer of the building looking out for them. 

Mike had agreed to the set-up without enthusiasm, but without any marked rejection, either. A dark depression had fallen over him since his cathartic confession to Blair earlier that morning -- he seemed to fully believe that he was going to die, and that nothing they could possibly do was going to save him. It was an attitude that Blair was finding hard to stomach, and it was making him nervous as hell. 

"We're going to be just fine," Jim assured him, sensing his unease. "There are officers in the lobby, and Brown and Rafe are watching the street outside. No one's going to come up here without being seen." 

Blair nodded and took another sip of his tea, failing to mention the fact that he put more faith in his Sentinel's senses than in the combined might of the entire Cascade Police Department. 

Mike had agreed to sleep on the futon in the downstairs bedroom. Blair had made no secret of the fact that he and Jim would be sleeping together, but Mike made no mention of it. Perhaps under the circumstances, nothing would have caught him by surprise. 

The evening progressed rapidly, as the sky steadily darkened and the rain continued to fall. Thunder rumbled a distant promise to the east, and Blair figured that they'd have one hell of a firecracker before dawn. The thought made him uneasy as he remembered Mike's accounts of the storm in the African rainforest where Johan had died. 

Mike was asleep downstairs -- or at least doing a reasonable imitation of it -- when Blair crawled into bed beside Jim. They'd left a lamp in the living room lit in case Mike had to get up to use the bathroom during the night, and Blair found the unfamiliar half-light more unsettling than total darkness. Closing his eyes against it, he burrowed in against Jim's side, drinking in the warmth and solidity of the body beside him. 

Jim's arm slid around him and pulled him close. "Get some sleep," he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of Blair's head. "I just talked to Rafe, and everything's quiet outside. Chances are, he won't even come here tonight." 

Blair didn't have to ask who he meant. "Thanks, Jim," he said, wishing he could take some degree of comfort from the words. The free-floating anxiety was back again, and it was worse now because he had a face to attach to his fears. 

Nevertheless, he felt himself begin to relax as Jim spooned up behind him, strong arms wrapping tight around him as their legs tangled together under the blankets. Part of him was listening intently for any sound from beyond the windows, but his efforts were impeded by the steady drumming of the rain. To his surprise, he actually felt tired, and with a yawn, he felt himself begin to drift to sleep. 

Almost immediately, he began to dream. 

He knew he was dreaming, but it felt more as if he had just closed his eyes and then opened them someplace else. He was in the jungle again, surrounded by looming trees, and as before, the shadows seemed to press in around him. The place seemed oddly familiar, and not just because he'd dreamed about being here the other night. In a way that he couldn't explain, it almost felt as if he'd come home. 

Somewhere in the far-off distance, he could hear Mike calling his name. He sounded scared, and Blair's heart did an immediate flip at the unexpected sound. What the hell was Mike doing here? Without stopping to consider the oddity of it, he took off into the jungle after his friend, bending his head to avoid the slap of low-hanging tree branches against his face. His feet didn't make any noise against the ground as he moved. 

He could have been walking for a minute or an hour when the trees thinned out ahead of him at the lip of a sweeping ravine. Tall grass waved in the wind with the repetitive motion of waves on the ocean, mesmerizing him, and it took him a moment to notice Mike's tall form moving out across the valley floor. He looked lost, and frightened, and Blair was just about to call out to him when he noticed the second shape moving forward into the ravine. 

It was a jackal, with a light tan coat and darkly slanted side stripes, barely visible in the shadows but for the bright white tip of its tail. Blair stared, feeling an unaccountable sense of menace steal over him. It was a jackal, _Canis adustus_ \-- common enough in these jungle regions -- and yet at the same time, it wasn't. The paradox disturbed him deeply. It was like looking at a black hole and seeing only the faintest smudge of darkness, when you knew full well that the thing had enough gravity and mass enclosed within it to rip a galaxy asunder. 

"Lucien," he whispered. 

The animal lifted its head sharply, tall ears swiveling back as it turned to look in his direction. Blair held himself very still, wondering what the thing saw when it looked at him. He sensed a deep wave of uncertainty rising from it, and curiosity, and hunger, and underneath it all was a deep, simmering rage. 

Chuffing softly, it turned away from him dismissively and started once again toward Mike. 

Dear God, Mike had no idea that he was being hunted. Or if he did, he didn't have any idea by what, or from which direction. Blair began to sweat, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do. Gruesome images rose in his imagination of what the jackal would do to Mike once it caught up to him. 

"No," Blair said, feeling sickened. He had to do something to stop this from happening. And since thought was action in this place, he was suddenly there, in the middle of the ravine, staring down at the small, striped animal crouching hidden in the grasses in front of him. Its dark eyes echoed with an emptiness that chilled him to the core. 

The jackal shrank away from him, lips pulling back from its teeth in a low growl that lifted the hairs along the back of Blair's neck. Its striped fur bristled threateningly, and for a moment Blair was convinced that he had just made a fatal mistake. He barely had time to reconsider his decision to challenge Lucien openly when the jackal gave a final growl and a snap of its jaws, then turned to dart away into the undergrowth. 

Blair opened his eyes with a small gasp, his heart knocking painfully inside his ribs. For a moment, he didn't know where he was, but then the details of the bedroom slowly came into focus around him. Rain pounded a steady cadence against the windows of the balcony downstairs, casting watery grey shadows across the room. 

"Blair?" Jim's voice was a soft breath beside him, heavy with concern. 

Blair barely heard him as he threw off the blankets and ran for the stairs. In deference to their guest, both he and Jim were dressed in T-shirts and boxers, which saved him a frantic few moments as he raced down to the living room and wrenched open the door to his old room. 

Mike was tangled in the sheets of the futon as if he had been fighting with them, breathing shallowly through his half-open mouth. He was lying on his back, limbs sprawled haphazardly across the bed, and his face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He looked unnaturally pale in the shaft of moonlight that spilled in through the far window, but he was _alive_. 

Shivering, Blair closed the door and went to sit on the couch nearest the balcony, shadowed by a nervous Jim. He sat for a moment, shaking, grateful that Jim seemed willing to give him the space he needed to regain his composure. Aside from the single lamp at the other end of the couch, the only illumination in the room was the nebulous shine of moonlight that fought its way in through the screen of the rain outside. 

Jim draped an afghan over his shoulders, and Blair snuggled into it gratefully, taking a deep breath to steady himself. He looked up into Jim's worried face and bit at his lower lip nervously. 

"I think I know what's going on now," he said. 

Jim waited patiently, rubbing his hand in small, soothing circles over Blair's back. It felt good, and Blair concentrated on the sensation for a moment, wondering if this was how Jim felt when he grounded him during a zone-out. 

"Tell me," Jim said at last. His tone was softly encouraging. 

Blair leaned against him, turning to gaze at the silver-on-black pattern of the rain outside the window. "Lucien is attacking his victims through the spirit plane, Jim," he said, pulling the afghan tighter around his shoulders. "That's why there haven't been any wounds on the bodies. He's using their dreams as a window; it's an old shamanic trick that dates back to ancient times." 

"You saw him?" 

"I saw his spirit animal." Blair shivered lightly at the memory, and Jim's arm moved around him, squeezing gently. 

Jim was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant. "Blair, you had a dream..." 

"No, Jim." Blair knuckled at his eyes tiredly. "I know it's hard to believe, but you and I have both seen things over the past few years that we can't explain. We know there's more out there in the world than we can see and hear and touch. As much as we might not want to believe in it, it's real." He wasn't sure where his sudden certainty was coming from, but it felt right. "And it makes sense, if you think about it. The things I've been seeing, the constant fatigue, the free-floating fear... Hallucinations of those who have already passed beyond the spirit plane are very common in shamanic visions. And it would have been easy for a shaman of Lucien's caliber to find the key outside Sowers' house to let himself in with. I'm half willing to believe he locked up behind himself afterward just to mess with our heads." 

Jim looked dubious. "Well, if you're right, then we're probably never going to catch the bastard. If he's using the spirit plane as a murder weapon, he can be attacking them from anywhere in the world. Am I right?" 

Blair thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No. I mean, he could, but he isn't. Remember the ritual markings on the bodies? He was _there_ , Jim, either before or after he killed them. Whoever this guy is, it's personal for him. He wants everyone to know that these guys aren't the sterling academics we thought they were." 

Jim mulled this over for a moment, rubbing lightly at his chin. "So if he planned to kill Mike tonight, then that means he's close by." 

The words sent a chill racing through him. "I'd think so." Blair glanced at the window again, wondering where Lucien was right now, and what he was thinking. The rain traced vague patterns against the glass of the window, dark against a darker black. 

His thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang without warning, freezing his heart inside his chest for a frantic moment before he realized what it was. He glanced at Jim, who squeezed his arm gently and got up to answer it. 

Blair tried to listen in on the one-sided conversation, but Jim's voice was too low as he talked to whoever was on the other end of the line. After a few moments, he hung up the phone and turned to Blair with a completely unreadable look in his eyes. 

"That was Brown," he said. "Looks like one of the neighbors down the street called 911 on a suspicious character she saw loitering in the alley behind her apartment building. The prowler matched Lucien's description, so the call was put through to the boys downstairs. Brown and Rafe just picked him up for questioning." 

Blair stared at him, not sure whether he should be delighted or dismayed by the news. Was it really Lucien? He tried reaching out to the nebulous web of images and feelings that had assailed him for the past several days, but now that he really needed them, the visions were stubbornly silent on the matter. 

He could tell that Jim was waiting for some kind of reaction from him. Taking a deep breath, Blair gave him a wavering smile. "I suppose we'd better get someone up here to sit with Mike if we're going to go talk to him, then." 

It wasn't something he was looking forward to. Truth be told, the thought of facing the shadowy demon from his dreams left him terrified and shaking. But he took strength from the love and trust that he saw shining in Jim's eyes. Jim believed in him; Jim had faith in him even if Blair himself did not. 

Maybe, just maybe, that faith would be enough. 

* * *

Jim knew from the moment he laid eyes on Lucien Mantashe that he was going to have his work cut out for him. 

He hadn't honestly been expecting the suspect that Brown and Rafe picked up to actually be the man they were looking for, but there could be little doubt that he was. Lucien had offered no information about himself, but his ID clearly identified him by name as a Tanzanian citizen. He was in the country legally, which was a disappointment, but there was something about the man that made Jim feel as though he wouldn't be making many obvious mistakes that could be used against him. 

Lucien was sitting dispassionately inside the poorly lit interrogation room, long legs stretched out underneath the table in front of him. He looked a lot like his picture, but there was an indefinable quality to him that the police artist had failed to capture from Mike's description. He seemed sublimely self-possessed for a man who had been dragged in off the streets at such an ungodly hour of the morning. His tall form was dressed casually in chinos and an earth-toned T-shirt, and his battered denim jacket was thrown over the back of the metal chair beside him. There was nothing exotic about him, aside from the uncommon darkness of his skin. He would have looked equally at home on a college campus or on an anthropological dig in deep jungle. Jim had to remind himself that while jungle-bred, the members of Lucien's clan were well-educated and indoctrinated in the vagaries of city life, quite unlike the shamans of the Chopec tribe where he had spent his last year in the Army. 

"He doesn't much look like a man with a guilty conscience," Simon remarked dryly from where he stood next to Jim, watching their suspect through the one-way mirror in the hallway. 

Jim didn't take his eyes away from the window. "No, he doesn't." 

On Jim's other side, Blair was bouncing nervously. Jim had objected to having Blair accompany him in the interrogation, but Blair had insisted. On one level, Jim was glad; if anyone had a chance of unraveling the psyche of their unwilling guest, it would be Blair. On the other hand, Jim was loath to put him into a situation where he might again be at the mercy of the visions that were plaguing him. He was still hesitant to give in to Blair's theory that their problems had a spiritual basis, but he had to admit that the appearance of an African shaman on the streets of Cascade was a definite point in his favor. 

Steeling himself, Jim pulled open the door to the interrogation room and stepped inside, and Blair followed him without any visible hesitation. At the table, Lucien's eyes lifted to look at them as they came in, and Jim kept his face expressionless as he sat down across from him. It unnerved him that Lucien's gaze seemed to have bypassed him completely to focus on Blair. 

Taking a deep breath, Jim plunged in. "I'm Detective Jim Ellison, and this is my partner, Blair Sandburg. We're investigating the murders of several faculty members of Rainier University." 

Lucien's gaze shifted to meet his without any apparent surprise or anger at the unspoken accusation in the words. "Murder is a relative term," he said, with a thin ghost of a smile. His voice was surprisingly deep and colored with an accent that was almost musical. 

Jim leaned back in his chair, mirroring the other man's casual attitude. "Not in this country." 

Any police-type interrogation was a seduction; each party was trying to seduce the other into giving him what he wanted. It was a game that Jim had played countless times, and it was one that he was remarkably good at. The first thing you had to do was size up your opponent, try to figure out what manner of approach would work on him. With some, you could be straight-forward and matter-of-fact, provided you knew the facts of the case and you made it clear that they couldn't deceive you. In cases like these, however, where the facts were still largely unknown, he'd learned that it was best to take a more circuitous approach. 

"We know what happened in Tanzania, Lucien," he said, trying to project a note of sympathy into his voice. "You have every reason to want to see these guys dead. Hell, if they'd killed my brother, I'd probably want a piece of them myself." 

Lucien's expression did not change, but something deep in his eyes flickered darkly at that. "Then you should understand that justice takes different forms in this world, and in the next," he said. 

"And yet it's my job to uphold the justice of this country. In this world." Jim could sense Blair stirring restlessly behind him, but he didn't look away from Lucien. "Will it bring your brother back to kill these people? Do you think your brother would have wanted you to throw everything away for him like this?" 

For a moment, the rage he sensed pouring from Lucien was so pronounced that it was almost a physical presence within the room. "You know nothing about my brother." 

"What about the rest of your family back home, then?" Blair spoke up from where he stood behind Jim's shoulder, coming forward to stand beside him. His tone was honestly curious. "What about your people? From what I understand, accepting the role of shaman to a village is a lifelong commitment. I can't see how they would approve of a mission of personal vengeance." 

Lucien regarded Blair curiously for a long moment, and Jim felt the hairs along the back of his neck start to raise at the blatant assessment in his gaze. 

"I don't understand you," Lucien said at last, making Blair blink at the apparent non sequitur. "I thought I did, earlier, but you surprised me. That was my mistake, I guess. I should know better than to make assumptions in our line of work." His smile was wry and faintly threatening. His voice lowered as he said, "Do you really intend to protect them?" 

Blair held his gaze steadily, although Jim could tell that he was shaking. "That depends. Do you really intend to try and kill them?" 

Lucien's smile took on a sharper edge. "We'll see." 

Jim shifted in his chair, not understanding what was going on between the two of them but knowing that he didn't like it. "Can you account for your whereabouts over the past two days?" he asked, hearing the edge begin to creep into his voice. There was something about Lucien that he truly did not like, but whether that was because of the man's unshakable confidence, his inexplicable mood shifts, or his uncommon interest in Jim's Guide, remained to be seen. 

"I don't understand why you insist on pursuing a matter that is clearly outside your jurisdiction," Lucien told him, sounding disinterested. 

"You didn't answer the question." 

One of Lucien's eyebrows lifted. "I wasn't aware that I was under an obligation to answer any of your questions." His tone was sharp. "I'm a private citizen, a guest to your country, and I have chosen to speak to you without the benefit of a lawyer. I believe that courtesy is at an end. Either charge me with a crime, or let me go." 

Jim refused to react to the unconcealed ire in the words, although he cursed inwardly. He'd known full well that taking an aggressive stance would be a mistake in this situation, and yet he'd let his personal feelings influence him into doing just that. God _damn_ it. Keeping his expression neutral, he slid his chair away from the table and stood up. 

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay with us for a little while longer," he said, letting the faintest edge of menace enter into his voice. "If you change your mind about talking to us, I'll see what I can do about cutting you some kind of a deal." 

He didn't wait for a response as he motioned for Blair to precede him out of the room. It was an absolutely baseless threat, and he was fairly sure that Lucien knew it. Knowing that didn't improve his mood any as he closed the door firmly behind him and met up with Simon in the hallway. 

"That went well," Simon remarked, scowling. 

"It could have gone better," Jim agreed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. 

Blair walked up to the window looking over the interrogation room and peered inside. Strangely enough, Lucien seemed to be staring right back at him. "I don't think he took you seriously, Jim." 

"No, he didn't." Jim looked at him closely, eyes tracing the stiff contours of his back. "You, however, he took very seriously." He refused to say how much that disturbed him. 

"You do realize that we can only hold him for twenty-four hours without pressing charges." Simon was clearly upset by this fact. "And if he gets it into his head to hire a lawyer and sue for false arrest, then this entire department is in deep shit, Jim." 

"What, you mean that little conversation in there wasn't enough?" Blair glanced back at him in surprise. "He all but admitted to committing the murders, and to wanting to go after the others." 

Jim sighed tiredly. "Nothing that he said can be construed as an outright confession, Chief." 

Blair was aghast. "You've got to be kidding me." 

"I'm afraid that endorsement of justice 'on a higher plane' does not a confession make." Simon looked disgusted with the whole thing, as if he'd just as soon do away with modern ideas of legality and indulge in a little shamanic justice himself. 

"And the truth is, even though the ME ruled the deaths a homicide, we can't even prove that there was a crime committed. As near as we can figure, those guys died in their sleep." It was depressing to discuss the facts of the case out loud; Jim didn't like being reminded of how very little they had to go on. "We show no evidence of him at the scene. He's here legally, so we can't even get him on that. We have _nothing_ , Chief." He turned away abruptly and glared in through the window at the source of his misery. "Not a damn thing." 

Blair was unnaturally silent during the ride home. Jim would have preferred to stay and work out ways to wrestle a confession out of their guest, but he knew that Blair would have insisted on staying with him, and Blair desperately needed to rest. He was still shaken after the events of the past few days, and Jim still felt abnormally protective of him. 

It was frustrating, but there didn't seem to be much he could do about it. He'd had this odd feeling for the past two days, that Blair was in danger and needed to be protected. He hadn't been able to explain it then, and he couldn't adequately explain it now, but there was little doubt that the feeling, however irrational, had been more than slightly accurate. 

He'd never been more unhappy about being proved right. 

* * *

Blair didn't speak again until they were inside the loft. Jim was in full emotional shut-down again, which wasn't entirely unexpected considering the circumstances. But it was damned irritating, and Blair had to fight the ridiculous urge to clap his hands over his ears and start screaming until it forced Jim to have an honest-to-God emotional reaction. 

Blair was still upset about the way the interview with Lucien had gone, and no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, he couldn't erase the sick feeling of dread that crawled just underneath the surface of his skin whenever he thought about it. The feeling was almost familiar after the past couple of days, but that didn't help reduce its impact any. Part of him wanted to just crawl into bed and block out the world, but the more dominant part of him knew that that wasn't an option. 

Deciding to grab the bull by the horns, he faced Jim squarely and said, "Jim, you know as well as I do that being in jail isn't going to keep him from going after Mike and the others." 

Jim closed the refrigerator door rather more forcefully than was strictly necessary and leaned back against the counter as he took a sip of his bottled water. "He's in custody, Chief. I'm not sure what else you want me to do right now." 

The sun was just beginning to rise, and the living room was layered in trailers of clinging shadow. Mike was under protective custody now with the rest of the survivors from Eisner's expedition, and the loft seemed unnaturally still and empty around them. Blair walked up to the balcony windows and looked outside, rubbing his hands over his arms to warm them. 

"I want you to help me figure out what to do," he said truthfully. 

There was silence behind him for a moment, and then the air behind him shifted with the warmth of his Sentinel's body. "Talk to me," Jim said softly, pushing Blair's hair back lightly behind his ear with the fingers of one hand. 

Fighting back a shiver, Blair leaned back against the body behind him. "You know, Jim, I never really thought of myself as a shaman before. I mean, not _really_. It's not like I have a sign hanging outside our door advertising my services to the general public, you know?" He laughed shortly, but there really wasn't any humor in it. He sighed, pressing his cheek briefly up against Jim's. "I know that Incacha passed something on to me, some kind of trust, but I never really understood what that meant. But these are _my_ people, and this is _my_ city. I can't just let Lucien wander through and kill whoever he damn well pleases." 

Jim let his breath out in an uneasy sigh. "He's a trained shaman, Blair." 

"And I'm just a city kid with delusions of grandeur, I know." Blair's smile was wry. The rain had quieted after the night's thunderstorm, but it still traced random patterns across the windowpane in front of him, bisecting his view of the city outside. "But he knows I'm here now, Jim. That means I'm a target now, too. I don't think he really saw me as a threat before. But when he saw that I was ready to challenge him last night to keep him away from Mike, he turned tail and ran. I don't know why that is, but it means I have some kind of power here. Something that could maybe help bring the killings to an end." 

"So what do you want to do?" Jim's voice was sharp, thick with the fear-driven anger he always seemed to feel whenever he thought that Blair was in danger. "If you can tell me it'll help, I'll have fifty cops sitting in his cell before the hour's up. Give me something to work with here, Blair." 

Blair shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. At least, I don't think it does. I don't know what he's planning, but I think I know how I can find out." 

Jim's sudden silence said that he understood clearly the direction Blair's thoughts were heading. "You're going to meet him on the spirit plane." 

Blair could tell by the sound of Jim's voice that he wasn't particularly taken with the idea. Steeling himself, he refused to let that sway him. "I have to, Jim. He's just going to keep on killing until somebody stops him. And who says he's going to stop after he finishes with the members of Eisner's expedition? There's probably dozens of people that he can hold responsible for his brother's death if he has a mind to. What about the people who funded Eisner's grant? The museum reps who were negotiating the sale of the artifacts? The pilot who flew them out into the region where Johan died? When is it going to stop, Jim?" 

His vehemence surprised even himself. Jim didn't say anything in response to the outburst for a long moment, and Blair was left listening to the steady drumming of the rain against the window. Finally, Jim said, "I don't like it." 

Which made sense, of course. Jim was used to battling his foes openly, with fists and guns and superior intellect. Anything having to do with the spirit world had always unnerved him, and Blair could still hear the echo of Jim's voice as he lay recovering in the hospital after the fountain incident -- " _Chief, I don't know if I'm ready to take that trip with you._ " What he'd never admitted to Jim was that he hadn't felt near ready to take that trip himself. Spirituality was all very well in theory, but when it came right down to it, he was as scared of the idea as Jim was. 

Not to mention that this wasn't a battle Jim could fight for Blair; if anything, Blair would be left protecting him. Which was an interesting change of paradigm, Blair couldn't help but think. The thought made him smile despite himself. 

Bracing himself, he turned away from the window to look up into Jim's eyes. "How about it, Jim?" he asked, positive that he could hear the frightened pounding of his heart even without Sentinel senses. "Are you ready to take that trip with me yet? Because I don't mind telling you, I could sure use your help here." 

Jim stared down at him for a long moment, without saying anything. Then he nodded. "Whatever you need," he promised. 

Blair felt overwhelmed by such a surge of love and gratitude that there was really nothing else he could do but kiss him. Jim held onto him tightly, all but squeezing the breath out of him as he rubbed his cheek against the top of Blair's head. 

"I love you," Jim whispered, and Blair shut his eyes against the strength of the emotions that rose up inside of him. 

"I love you, too, Jim." And suddenly their situation didn't seem quite so grim. As long as Jim was here with him, Blair felt as if he could take on the world. 

There was very little practical information available on how to instigate a shamanic vision, but Blair did what he could. He slid off his shoes and settled as comfortably as he could onto the couch, sitting cross-legged and stretching out the kinks in his neck muscles to relax himself. Jim had gone to fetch him his favorite meditation candles, and they were lit now on the coffee table in front of him, filling the air with the sweet, subtle fragrance of beeswax. 

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Jim slid a leg between Blair and the back of the couch and settled down carefully behind him, sliding his arms around his waist. He rested his chin on Blair's shoulder and hugged him tightly, his breath tickling Blair's ear. 

Blair leaned against him, grateful for both the physical and emotional support. "I think so," he said, pushing his hair back away from his face distractedly. "The way things have been going lately, it might be harder to _stop_ the visions from coming than to initiate one." 

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the heat of Jim's body behind him. At once, the fatigue he'd been holding off crashed in on him, and this time, he gave in to it without protest, letting it carry him down. Opening his eyes to half-slits, he focused on the flickering orange lights of the candle flames in front of him. They blurred in front of his eyes, running together in a pattern reminiscent of the rain on the windows, and he closed his eyes against the brightness of them. 

_You must choose your destiny, little wolf. It will not choose you._ The words seemed to come from deep inside of him, and from around him at the same time. _You may be put on the path and shown which direction to go... but only you can make the decision to follow it._

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring up at a nighttime sky. He was standing on a cleared path in deep jungle, and the only sound around him was the steady whisper of the wind in the trees. 

There was something odd about the sky that he couldn't quite explain, and he was reminded of certain tribal religions that said the stars were actually the souls of ancestors who had already made their journey through the spirit realm. He had never placed much stock in such religions, but here, in this place, they seemed somewhat more than an idle curiosity. 

"Blair?" 

Startled, Blair turned to see Jim standing on the path some distance behind him. For a moment he just stared, not quite willing to accept the evidence of his senses, but the tender confusion on Jim's face as he looked around was heartbreakingly familiar. 

"Jim," he said, moving toward him and taking hold of his arm in greeting. That arm felt warm, solid -- real. That in itself seemed odd in this place. 

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised him that Jim would be here with him now. Jim was a Sentinel, after all, with more than a passing familiarity with the spirit world in his own right. And more than that, he was _Blair's_ Sentinel, Blair's Blessed Protector. If Lucien had the power to drag unwilling others into the spirit plane to hunt them down and kill them, then Blair should be more than able to pull Jim along, willingly, to stand beside him. 

He was suddenly, overwhelmingly glad for Jim's presence as the night was suddenly split by a high-pitched, barking cry that sounded uncomfortably similar to a human scream. Tensing, he pressed closer to Jim's side, taking comfort in the tangible warmth of the body beside him. 

Somewhere in the darkness around them, a jackal was hunting. 

"What the hell was that?" Jim whispered. 

"Lucien's spirit animal." Blair was shivering uncontrollably now, and he was struck suddenly by the near irresistible urge to just let it go, to give up this foolish, self-imposed duty to defend the members of his tribe. He wanted desperately to just go home and make love to Jim until he couldn't remember his own name, much less the responsibilities laid on him by a dying shaman more than two years ago. 

But of course that was never truly an option. Blair's conscience forbade it, and he knew that he would never be able to live with himself if he turned his back on his duties now, and people died because of it. Jim had accepted his role as a protector of the Great City without hardly batting an eye; how could Blair do anything less? 

"You okay?" Jim asked softly, touching him lightly on the back. Blair leaned into the touch and looked up at him with solemn eyes. 

"I think so." He took a deep breath to steady himself, knowing Jim would never agree to let him face this trial alone, even if Blair insisted. The thought was warmly comforting, even though he knew it was highly possible that they would both die here. 

Blair's attention was caught by a silver shadow that flickered to life ahead of him on the path. He turned toward it, his breath catching in his throat when he saw the grey-furred wolf standing a cautious distance away, watching him. Its head was up, ears back, and as he watched, it whuffed softly. 

"Blair," Jim whispered, and Blair nodded. 

"I see it," he whispered back. He took a slow step forward, feeling a sense of calm steal over him. The appearance of his Spirit Guide seemed a very good omen, considering the circumstances. 

"Show me where Lucien is," he requested quietly, knowing that the decision was right the moment he made it. As a shaman, it was within his power to seek the aid of his spirit allies. It wasn't something that he had ever seriously considered before, and a shiver of excitement gripped him without regard for the direness of their circumstances when the wolf obeyed him. 

The wolf stepped off the edge of the path with a last look over its shoulder at them. Blair followed immediately, with Jim cursing softly under his breath and trailing close behind. At once, the darkness closed around them. 

Blair moved as silently as he could, ducking his head to avoid the low-hanging branches as he followed the ghostly form of the animal in front of him. He'd been to many different jungles during his career as an anthropologist, but none of them had ever possessed this kind of uncomfortable _listening_ quality, as if the trees themselves were alive and watching him. The shadows around him were blue-tinged, and they seemed to swirl in shapes and textures that had little to do with the objects that cast them. 

It seemed that Blair walked for a very long time before he came to the edge of a deep gorge. The ground fell away in front of him, and at the very cusp of it, an enormous tree clawed savagely into the ground, its branches spreading out like a monstrous canopy above him, cutting off the sky. Blair stepped into its shadow cautiously, feeling a tingle move down his spine as he bent to slide his fingers through the soft dirt at his feet. 

"What is this place?" Jim asked, moving to stand behind him. 

Blair smiled softly, feeling the individual grains of dirt press between his fingers. "I think this is the World Tree, Jim." It was a common structure in accounts of shamanic journeys, a sort of connecting bridge between the Lower, Middle, and Upper Worlds. He couldn't keep the awe out of his voice as he said, "I've read narratives about it, but I never thought I'd actually see --" 

A low, coughing growl above him made him raise his head sharply, and Blair held himself very still as he watched the sleek form of a black jaguar make its way down through the branches of the tree to stand in front of him. He could feel Jim tense behind him, but he raised a hand to gesture that everything was all right. He wasn't sure why or how, but he knew this animal, too. 

"The Guide and the Guardian," Blair said softly, seeing the wolf and the jaguar standing side-by-side, and he almost thought that the jaguar smiled in response to his statement. 

The jaguar led him toward a large hole that had been bored in the side of the tree. Blair looked inside uncertainly, feeling an undeniable terror of the darkness that pulsed within. 

"Where does it lead?" Jim asked, leaning over his shoulder to take a tentative look inside. 

Blair was silent for a moment as he considered. "To the Lower World, would be my guess," he said at last, thinking back to what he knew of shamanic lore. 

"Is that where we're going to find Lucien?" 

Blair nodded, feeling the certainty of it move through him. "Yes." He bit his lip and glanced back at the other man, feeling a sudden spike of urgency. "And we have to hurry, Jim. He's... he's so full of pain and anger over his brother's death. He needs to kill. It's the only way he can think of to keep himself sane." The insight surprised him, but the wolf and the jaguar only blinked at him in calm acceptance as they waited to see what he would do next. 

Without stopping to rethink his decision, Blair reached up to grab one of the branches above his head and levered himself into the hole in the side of the tree, feet-first. To his surprise, there was a gently sloped tunnel leading down ahead of him. 

"Be careful," Jim said, sounding none too certain. 

Blair laughed nervously. "Believe me, Jim, being reckless here is not one of my plans." With a last brief glance at Jim, he let go of the branch and allowed himself to slide forward into the darkness. 

He seemed to fall for a very long time. He hit the bottom with a dull "oof" and rolled to a sitting position, looking around uncertainly. He was on the shore of a large lake now, with a brilliantly patterned night sky stretching overhead. Again, the stars seemed to be somewhat more than what they appeared, and he turned his eyes away from them hurriedly, feeling uncomfortable under their weighing gaze. 

Jim landed beside him a moment later, and Blair moved to stand by him gratefully. The sand around them was pale white, almost silver under the light of the stars. The waters of the lake were black as ink and curiously unreflective, lapping softly against the shore. 

There was a boat sitting on the shoreline nearby, as if waiting for them. Blair shared a long glance with Jim and then approached it cautiously. With only the barest of hesitations, he stepped into the narrow vessel and sat down. Jim followed immediately behind him, his brow furrowing as he stared out at the water around them. 

_This is a strange poetry_ , Blair thought, in a line from a poem. He couldn't help but feel that everything he was seeing was symbolic in nature, and he just didn't have the training or the expertise to understand it. He reached for Jim's hand and held on tightly, drawing comfort from the tacit strength of the other man's grip, fortifying himself with the reality of his lover's presence. 

The boat was navigated across the lake by a tall man dressed in black, who seemed to appear out of nowhere once the boat began to move. Blair eyed him closely from where he sat at the aft end of the boat, wondering at the significance of it. Cultures across the world purported myths about mysterious men in black, who often fulfilled the role of a conductor between worlds. This particular "man" was so unremarkable inside the sweeping folds of his hood and robe, so completely without distinguishing characteristics of any kind, that he could not possibly be anything other than a walking metaphor. Where were the images in this spirit plane coming from, anyway, if not from Blair's own subconscious? For the first time, he wondered if Jim was seeing the same things that he was. 

The boat arrived at the opposite shore with a small bump. Blair glanced up nervously, knowing that in Greek mythology, there was often a fee required when one was punted across the river. But their mysterious host made no movement toward him, so Blair clambered out of the boat carefully and looked around curiously at their new surroundings. 

They appeared to be on an island of some sort, but it was like no island that Blair had ever seen before. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of ghostly shapes flitting around him, luminous under the light of the stars. They were wandering aimlessly, without purpose or direction, vague drifts of light among the shadows. Blair felt a deep-seated chill grip him as he realized where they were. 

"Where the hell are we, Blair?" Jim hissed softly, standing so close behind him that Blair could feel his breath wafting across his ear. 

"It's okay, Jim," he said, without taking his eyes away from the incredible sight in front of him. At least, he _hoped_ it was okay. "These are _souls_ , or at least parts of them." From the look on Jim's face, that would definitely require more elucidation. Taking a deep breath, he explained, "One of the primary tenets of shamanic belief is a type of psychological healing known as 'soul-retrieval'. It's believed that most forms of psychological imbalance are a result of soul loss, that we actually... _lose_ pieces of ourselves during periods of trauma or extreme illness in our lives. It's said to be something we all suffer from, to one degree or another." He paused, drinking in the sight around him. Even he could hear the awe in his voice when he said, "I guess this is the place, symbolically speaking, where those lost pieces go." 

He could tell that Jim wasn't at all impressed by the lecture. "So what does that mean, exactly?" he said, sounding not at all happy about the situation. He pulled Blair back abruptly when one of the drifting souls wandered too close for comfort. 

"Well," -- Blair had to think about that for a moment -- "our Spirit Guides led us here for a reason, Jim. I did ask them to show us where Lucien is." 

The sound of a child crying distracted him, and he turned to focus on the shape of a young boy huddling at the edge of the water some distance away. Curious, Blair moved closer to get a better look. Jim followed close behind. 

"Hey," Blair said, dropping down to one knee beside the child. The boy looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and rubbed at his cheeks absently. "What's your name?" 

"Lucien," the boy replied, and for some reason, Blair didn't find this at all surprising. It made sense that the more innocent parts of himself that Lucien had lost -- the parts that didn't want to kill or hate -- would manifest as a child here. 

The strangest feeling began to fall over Blair then, and he blinked, seeing the child's image begin to blur in front of him. It wavered for a moment, like sunlight on water, and shifted into the outline of the jackal he'd seen earlier, then into the shape of Lucien the man. Then it was nothing but a child again, staring up at him with wide, solemn eyes. 

And suddenly, he _knew_ this man. It wasn't just a vague feeling or a tentative supposition -- it was like he was suddenly _inside_ his skin, looking out through his eyes. He saw the pain and horror that Lucien had felt when his parents died at a painfully young age, and the way his brother had then become parent, and friend, and the only family that he'd ever truly known. He saw the pride that Lucien had felt when he was discovered by the village's holy woman and taken on as her pupil to learn the way of the shaman, almost equal to the pride he'd felt when he made his first solo trek to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro to watch the sun rise over the roof of the world. Then watching the sun set, sitting at the old woman's bedside as she died, holding a deathwatch vigil while she passed on to him the charge to look after the people of their village, to watch over them, to serve them. To be their shaman. 

So much pride, and sorrow, pieces of himself falling away with each successive loss. Rage, hate, grief, fear, nothing at all the same as it was, and would never be again. Railing against the injustice of a world that would take so much away from him, family, teacher, brother, until nothing mattered except setting that pain to rest, in the only way he knew how. Even if it meant the loss of everything else that he still held dear. 

Blair gasped and opened his eyes, unaware that he had closed them. Jim's hands were warm on his shoulders, steadying him against the vision that shuddered through him. 

"Jim," he whispered, unsure what he was trying to say, but before he could get his shattered thoughts in order, a dark shadow fell over him, cutting off the light from the stars. 

He shot to his feet and whirled, his heart pounding. Immediately, Jim moved in front of him, half-shielding him with his body, but Blair laid a hand on his arm and gently pushed him aside. This wasn't Jim's battle to fight; not this time. 

Lucien stood on the beach some distance away, and Blair knew without question that this time, he was the real thing. Not a shadow image or a dream or a hallucination brought to life by Blair's fears of giving in to the responsibilities that had been imposed on him. He was watching Blair closely, although in the darkness, little could be seen of his expression aside from the echoing blackness of his eyes and the dark slash of his mouth. Blair shivered, feeling the immense power emanating from him. Did Jim feel it? Lucien had spent the greater part of his life making journeys through the spirit plane; he was familiar with all its many vagaries, had made his peace with his own horde of spirit allies, had performed his fair share of miracles. And Blair was just a shaman-wannabe, untrained and untested, terrified, lost, and completely out of his league. 

Dear God, they were going to die here. 

"Lucien," he said, wiping damp palms across the front of his shirt and wondering just how the hell he was still able to sweat here in the spirit realm. That shouldn't be allowed, no matter how realistic his subconscious was trying to make the experience for him. 

He knew immediately that Lucien had no intention of listening to anything that he had to say. Blair could hear the echo of the jackal's callous cry in the far distance, and it chilled him. He had made it clear in no uncertain terms that if Lucien wanted to continue on his mission of vengeance to take the lives of the men he felt had wronged him, then he would have to get through Blair first. Just his luck that Lucien was the type to take him up on it. 

That was about all he had the time to consider before the world exploded. 

Blair screamed as he was caught up inside of a whirlwind of light and sound, assaulted from all sides by a power so intense that his mind couldn't encompass the scope of it. The world seemed to break apart and crumble around him, like water thrown on a child's sand castle, changing, shifting, unreal becoming real around him. The horror of that was worse than the pain, worse than the fear, and he felt the edges of madness press up around him, gibbering insanely for his attention, fighting to claw its way to him through the violent storm of rage and fear and vicious hate that railed against him. 

_Blair!_

He realized suddenly that Jim was here with him, _oh God oh God oh God_ , _NO_ , not here, not in this place, because Jim couldn't die, couldn't die this way, and Blair tried shoving him away, to get him _out_ of here, away from here, but Jim was holding onto him with a strength that Blair found unbelievable and refused to let him go. 

_Jim_... 

And suddenly he was in the fountain again, struggling for air, desperate for it, lost and terrified and alone, black water rising up around him, cutting off the light, cutting off the world, locking him away inside the prison of his own unimaginable terror. Blair screamed again, and tasted water, thick and dark and bitter... NO! This couldn't be happening, couldn't be happening, couldn't be real. 

The water that entombed him tasted like defeat, like despair, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight against it; he'd thought that he could face Lucien down, but he couldn't, there was no way he was strong enough to be able to do this. It seemed the grossest of arrogance suddenly to have ever thought that he could. This was his own private nightmare, and oh God oh God it was _real_ , his lungs were _burning_ , it was really happening, and nothing that he could do would be enough to save him. 

Light. Desperately, Blair swam for it, kicking out against the unseen hands that tried to drag him down. From somewhere distant, he could hear a jaguar screaming, and it was a vicious, angry sound. The sound brought with it memories of a light, a blinding light that had saved him the last time he had been in this place, when the jaguar and the wolf had raced together through the trees and fused together in a moment of pure, unadulterated ecstasy that blazed brighter than the sun. It had been a moment of sublime epiphany for him, and for that one moment, everything had seemed clear, and he'd felt as if finally, all of his questions had at last found answers. 

A strong hand closed around his, pulling him free from the clinging grasp of the water, and Blair sucked in great lungfuls of air, cringing from the explosion of lights that sparkled in front of his eyes as the world snapped back into focus around him. Jim's arms closed around him, holding him close, and Blair huddled in their warm shelter gladly, gasping for breath as if he'd never tasted air before. It was warm here in Jim's embrace, and Blair found himself reaching out for Jim, holding onto him, feeding off of the love that poured out of him, the trust, the faith. Faith. Blair looked up into eyes that were bluer than the bluest sky he had ever seen. 

_You're not alone_. They were an echo of words that Jim had said to him earlier, but they seemed so much more profound now. They were words that Blair had ached to hear his entire life, but only here, in this place, did he understand their true meaning. He stared, wide-eyed, enraptured by the emotion he saw burning in Jim's eyes, and thought of all the things that Jim had ever been to him: lover, friend, partner, Sentinel, guardian. What more could it possibly take to lean on him now, and trust him in this as well? 

The storm raged around them. Blair could feel Lucien's fury, hot as a sun, sharp as the rain and the wind that lashed against them, blocking out the stars. Dear God, there was no way they could fight this, no weapon that they could raise against the powers that were being invoked here. They were going to die. Blair knew that, felt it in the deepest parts of him. But still he refused to give up, refused to give in. The souls of the island were spinning in a vicious whirlwind around him, spinning, dizzying, trying to make him give up the fight and let himself drift apart to join them, leeching the heat from his body with every moment that passed. 

Blair let his eyes drift closed for a second, just a second, red and blue and green and every other color in the rainbow crashing, converging in his head, exploding, burning, unraveling -- 

Then he forced his eyes to open and made a deliberate effort to let go of his fear, let go of his doubt, let go of the guilt that told him he wasn't competent to defend the people he had been charged to protect. Jim believed in him, after all. Jim had faith in him. Blair took a deep breath, and then another, in and out, in, out, concentrating his whole being on the force of that one, simple action, letting it focus his thoughts as the storm raged on around him. He tipped his head back against Jim's shoulder, letting Jim's heat seep into him, feeling the rain spill down his cheeks with the warmth of tears as Jim's arms slid tight around him. 

Feeling more at peace than he had since this entire wild adventure had begun, Blair opened himself up to the storm of souls and broken pieces of dreams that wailed around him, trusting Jim to keep him grounded. Through it all, he couldn't stop thinking of the child that Lucien had been, the child that he'd seen crying at the edge of the beach, lost, broken, cast aside in the wake of a darker ambition. For all his power, for all his hate, Lucien was only a boy who had wandered from his path, and gotten lost in the darkness. 

And Blair, as a shaman, was in the business of healing souls. 

Steeling himself, Blair reached through the storm for the one soul that he knew he would recognize: that solemn, dark child with the solemn, dark eyes. The child who had been charged with so much more than he ever imagined, been placed on paths that he'd never thought he would see. The child who was being eaten alive by guilt because of his brother's death, because he hadn't been able to save him, _should_ have been able to save him, because he was a shaman and it was his duty to protect his people, to keep them safe, but now his brother was dead and it was his fault. His fault, because he was a shaman and he should have been able to save him, when he hadn't even been able to protect his people from the theft of their most sacred possessions. 

Oh, _God_... it felt like being devoured alive, like being swept up inside the funnel of a world-sized tornado, like being born. The force of it shuddered through him, and Blair swayed, gasping, but Jim's arms were tight as life around him, clinging to him with a strength that seemed half desperation and half righteous fury. The wind screamed around him, but impossibly, something in that storm of souls seemed to answer him. 

Blair had no earthly idea of how to go about reuniting a lost soul with the body it had once inhabited, but all at once, the knowledge was _there_ , pressing at the edges of his mind. He closed his eyes and let it flow through him, feeling the oddly inexplicable awareness of another heart beating inside his own, another breath echoing through him. Even as he struggled to understand what was happening to him, he realized that what he felt was something completely apart from him or Jim or Lucien or the storm of souls that raged around them. He gasped as the mysterious presence moved out of him, through him, enveloping Lucien's child-soul and dragging it inexorably down into the vengeful form of the furious and guilt-torn man before them. 

It was a shock when the storm ended abruptly, and everything went suddenly, impossibly still. Blair swayed and would have fallen if Jim's arms hadn't been tight around him, holding him upright. It took him a moment to realize that it was over, that the storm was gone as if it had never been, and it took him longer still to focus on the narrow shape on the beach in front of them. 

It was Lucien. But this was a different Lucien than Blair remembered. He was thinner, diminished somehow, without the aura of banked power that had so terrified Blair at the start of their encounter. His eyes were wide against the dark skin of his face, and he stared at Blair with an expression of pure amazement. 

It was a feeling that Blair more than echoed. Quite honestly, he couldn't believe that he was still alive. Panting heavily, he leaned back against Jim's chest, clinging to him tightly. Jim curled protectively around him, holding him, and Blair concentrated on the feel of that familiar and beloved warmth against him, trying to fight back the tears that wanted to wrack through him as he tried desperately to understand what had just happened. 

"No more." Blair couldn't tell whether it was a plea or a promise. He was never quite sure which of the three of them had spoken. 

It was then that Blair realized Lucien's gaze was fixed on something beyond him, and he turned, hearing his breath catch as he noticed the silver fox standing behind them on the white sand of the beach. Blair straightened abruptly, feeling an inexplicable sense of epiphany tease at the edges of his consciousness, and watched as the animal stepped forward around them. The edges of its fur caught the light from the stars, as if it were in reality nothing other than a star itself. For a reason he couldn't explain, Blair thought of the presence he'd felt when he'd successfully made contact with Lucien's lost soul. 

The moment the fox stepped into view, all of the fight seemed to drain out of Lucien. His expression segued into one of shocked betrayal, and he sank to the ground in an exhausted slump, his eyes shining too bright in the darkness. 

"Why?" he whispered, without taking his gaze from the fox, and the bitter defeat in the word made Blair tremble in anguished sympathy. He tightened his grip on Jim's arms and felt tears sting his eyes, without knowing why. 

He watched with a feeling of profound wonder as the fox changed into the stoop-shouldered form of an old woman. For all the woman's apparent frailty, however, there was a feeling of immense power that emanated from her, shining in cold, near-visible waves out of her dark-skinned form. Her eyes were clear and solemn as she made her way to Lucien's side. 

One bony hand went to rest on Lucien's bent shoulder in a curiously maternal gesture, and he bowed under it, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and rocking gently. At that moment, he looked like nothing more than a young child being brought to task by a disappointed elder. 

The old woman turned to look at Blair and nodded slightly, as if thanking him for services rendered. He couldn't shake the odd feeling that he _knew_ her somehow, and it took him a moment to realize that this was the woman from Lucien's vision. The one who had trained him, and instructed him in the path that he was to follow. 

"You chose well," the old shaman told him, but whether she was referring to Blair's choice of guardians or his decision to confront Lucien was not clear. She smiled approvingly at him, and her expression was gentle. 

"Thank you," Blair said, wiping at the tears on his cheeks. He couldn't help feeling that if he tried, he might almost understand what was happening here. 

The woman turned away from him then and very carefully drew Lucien to his feet. Lucian followed her direction wordlessly, looking utterly defeated. Whatever battle he had been attempting to wage here had been undeniably lost. Blair tried to feel happy about that, but the best he could manage was to feel tired, and sad for reasons that he couldn't quite explain. 

Jim held onto him tightly as Lucien and the old woman walked away down the curve of the beach, their forms growing steadily dimmer as they got farther and farther away. Overhead, the stars shone brightly, twinkling softly against the darkness of the night. 

"What the hell just happened here, Chief?" Jim asked quietly, tightening his arms around Blair's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder, as if needing to feel for himself that Blair was still in one piece. 

Blair didn't answer for a long moment. "Damned if I know," he said at last, feeling an uncomfortable shiver pass through him. Whatever had just occurred, he was more than happy to leave Lucien in someone else's hands. 

The dream started to unravel around him then, and he let it, giving in to the dull, homing tug of the feelings within him. When he opened his eyes, he found himself sitting on the couch in the living room of the loft, with Jim spooned up tight behind him. Warm sunlight streamed headily in through the balcony windows, startling him for a moment as he tried to figure out just how long he and Jim had been under. The candles in front of him had burned very low. 

Jim's breath was warm behind his ear. When Blair turned to look at him, he saw a haunted, almost shell-shocked expression on the other man's face. Immediately, he reached to cup Jim's cheek in his palm and kissed him lightly on the lips. 

"We did it, Jim," he murmured, not sure yet just _what_ they had accomplished, but determined to soothe the fear and uncertainty he saw flickering in his Sentinel's gaze. Jim's troubled expression did not ease. Dropping his hand to Jim's shoulder, Blair squeezed lightly and said the only thing he could think of to reassure him. "It was _real_ , Jim. Whatever you saw while you were in there, it was real." 

Jim's eyes finally focused on his face, and he nodded slightly. "I know," he whispered, and he tightened his arms around Blair, pressing their cheeks together. His voice turned slightly hoarse as he repeated the words. "I know." 

Blair couldn't begin to think how difficult it must be for Jim to accept the fact that he'd shared in an honest-to-God shamanic journey. Jim was a man who lived his life according to the rules of the strictly tangible, and it had to be a vicious blow to have that solid ground pulled out from under him. With all that they'd seen over the past several years, with everything they'd experienced, it was impossible not to accept that there was something larger than both of them out there. But still, Jim's first instinct was to cling to the comfort and solidity of the world he knew. 

And yet he had gone, for Blair, and he hadn't turned away from his decision once it had been made. Not even when they were faced with a near-fatal assault from a world that he could barely bring himself to admit the existence of. It would require a great deal of further processing for Jim to feel comfortable with any of it, if he ever did. It was something that Blair wasn't sure he'd ever truly feel comfortable with himself. 

Blair twisted sideways so that he could lean his head on Jim's shoulder, letting his breath out in a long sigh. "Thank you," he whispered, knowing that Jim would understand exactly what he meant. He smiled when Jim's fingers slid his hair back away from his neck, making him shiver where they brushed across his skin. 

Jim pressed a kiss to the side of Blair's face, holding him as if he were the most precious gift that he had ever been given. His breath was warm and soft as it wafted across Blair's ear. 

"Any time, Chief." 

Blair could hear the sincerity in his voice. Whatever personal demons he might be wrestling with, there was no doubt that Jim had no regrets about any of it. 

And in Blair's book, that meant that all was right with the world. 

* * *

Jim watched as Blair settled back on the couch and fluffed a pillow behind him, looking up at him expectantly. Jim paused for a moment before hanging up the phone and then moved to join him. 

"That was Simon," he said, shifting his gaze away from Blair's curious gaze as he perched tensely on the edge of the couch beside him. "Lucien was found dead in his cell late this morning. There was no apparent cause of death." 

Blair swallowed visibly. "What about Mike and the others?" 

"They're fine, considering. They're still facing an investigation into their actions in Tanzania, and the negotiations for the artifacts they brought back with them are being frozen until further notice. But they're still alive, if that's what you're asking." He winced at the coldness in his tone, knowing that it stemmed from his own deep-seated reluctance to examine the supposed facts of this case too closely. Fortunately, Blair didn't take offense. 

Blair nodded. "You know," he said, settling back against the arm of the couch thoughtfully, "despite everything he did, I can't help feeling sorry for Lucien. I mean, he lost everything, and he went a little nuts because of it. First he lost his parents, then his mentor, and then these people -- _our_ people -- waltzed on in and took away the only family that he had left. Sure, it may have been an accident, but what they did was still _wrong_ , you know?" 

Jim wished that he could share Blair's magnanimous views, but found that he could not. The fact remained that four members of his city were dead, who had not been dead before. And Lucien had killed them. No matter the difficulties he might have in explaining the hows and the wherefores of it, he was very certain of that fact. 

It didn't help any that he saw far too much of himself in Lucien. What extremes would _he_ have gone to in order to avenge the death of someone he cared about? Blair, for instance? 

The thought made him extremely uncomfortable, and he hurriedly turned away from it. Outside the living room windows, the afternoon sun was shining brightly for the first time in over a week. Despite the deluge of the past few days, it looked as if they might be in for a bit of an Indian summer. 

"I'm not going to pretend to understand what happened, Chief," Jim said quietly, fixing his gaze on the panoramic view beyond the balcony outside. "But Simon's going to be expecting some kind of closure on this thing." He paused, but decided that Blair deserved the fullest amount of honesty that he could give him. "And I honestly wouldn't mind some kind of an explanation myself." 

"I can't explain what happened, Jim, any better than you can." Blair seemed curiously un-upset by this. "But what I _think_ happened is that when Lucien made the decision to go after Eisner and the others, he abandoned the people in the village that he'd sworn to protect. He went AWOL, so to speak. And the shaman who'd trained him, who passed that trust on to him, didn't approve." 

"You mean the old lady. The one who turned into a fox." Jim was rather proud of the fact that he didn't sound too condescending when he said it. He'd seen his share of odd things since he'd become a Sentinel, and he wasn't about to dismiss anything out of hand -- but that didn't mean he had to like it. 

"Yeah." Blair leaned back and propped his feet up on Jim's lap, smiling slightly. "It's one of the things I'm starting to learn about the spirit world, Jim. Everything there is a... a metaphor. It's like trying to decipher the language of dreams. There isn't a strict rulebook on how to go about it; sometimes you just have to trust your instincts." 

"And the fact that this woman had already died several years ago has no bearing on your logic whatsoever, does it?" Jim ran a hand across his face and let his breath out slowly. After a moment, he said, "Okay, so let's say I'm willing to buy this. That would mean that she... what? Decided to tag along with you -- spiritually speaking -- until you decided to confront her wayward pupil?" 

Blair nodded. "I think that's exactly what happened. And Lucien sensed her somehow, without realizing she was there. That's why he thought I was so very powerful, and why I kept having those terrible visions. She was trying to warn me, Jim. She wanted me to go after him, because for whatever reason, she couldn't confront him herself. She needed me to run a soul-retrieval on him, to lure him down into the Lower World where he could meet up with the missing parts of himself. It's a very common procedure in shamanic medicine, although it usually isn't done against another shaman. And definitely not against his will." He shuddered lightly, remembering. 

"Why you?" Jim's tone was dubious. "Of all the shamans that have to exist in this city, why in hell did she choose you?" 

"Who knows?" Blair shrugged. "Maybe she somehow sensed my connection to the university, or to the police department, and deduced that I'd have a better chance of tracking Lucien down than someone who didn't know anything about what was going on. Maybe it's the whole Sentinel thing, because we already have such a strong connection to the spirit world -- and to each other -- and she knew it would take the two of us to stand up against him." 

Jim sighed, rubbing his eyes. "It's a lot to swallow, Chief." 

"I know. Believe me, I know." Blair ran his fingers back through his hair and tipped his head back against the top of the couch. "And I don't think we're ever going to know for sure what really happened. I mean, any way you look at it, the spirit world is a place that you're going to come away from with more questions than you started out with. It's the nature of the beast, Jim." 

"Then what good is it?" The frustration in his voice had a bitter ring to it. 

Blair laughed shortly. "Well," he said, after considering for a moment, "Lucien's dead, isn't he? And we're still alive." 

There wasn't really any argument that Jim could raise against that. Instead, he reached for Blair and pulled him close, needing to feel the reality of him after the terrifying visions of the... dream... they'd shared. He buried his face in Blair's hair and inhaled deeply to savor the scent of him, settling them both back against the corner of the couch. 

"I'm just glad you're all right," he said, and sighed as he felt Blair's body relax against him. "Though the next time someone decides that it's your God-given duty to save the world, I wish that they'd at least ask first." 

Blair snuggled closer, settling himself in comfortably against Jim's side with the well-practiced ease of a cat. "Believe me, Jim, it's not something I plan on doing again anytime soon," he said, chuckling softly. Then he sobered, and when he spoke next, his voice was very serious. "'Like all of us in this storm between life and death, we can wreak no great changes on the world -- only small changes for the better, we can hope, to leave the mark of our passing.'" He sounded as if he were quoting. 

"Hemmingway?" Jim guessed, enjoying the warmth of the body in his arms. He rubbed his cheek slowly against Blair's hair, not really caring what the reference was. 

Blair tipped his head back and grinned up at him. "Dean Koontz," he replied, his eyes sparking impishly. "Not all the great wisdom of our time comes from classic literature." 

"Brat." 

Jim leaned down to kiss him then, completely unable to resist the face that looked up at him with such tender contentment at being inside his embrace. No matter what marks Blair ended up leaving on the world, the marks that he'd left on this modern-day Sentinel were deeply rooted and irreversible. They were bound together by more than just their experiences, more than just a common secret or a common goal in life. They were both sworn guardians of this city, held to their task by a power that Jim didn't understand and probably never would. But the bond between them went far deeper than that, soul-deep, deep to the parts of them that answered to the names _Jim_ and _Blair_ , not Sentinel and shaman. And for that he was eternally grateful. 

And even as he allowed himself to drift into the comfort -- the rightness -- of holding this man in his arms, Jim had to admit to himself that the things they'd encountered so far in their lives were probably nothing compared to what they had yet to face. Because the truth was, they had both chosen the more difficult path from the ones that had been presented before them. 

But at least they would not be traveling those paths alone. 

* * *

**EPILOGUE:**

The night was not night anymore; that was the first thing he noticed. The sky was ablaze with a myriad of silver lights, brilliant against the black backdrop that stood behind them. And that blackness had form to it, and texture, and dimension... As if the night itself had come alive, and grown into something new, something extraordinary. It seemed a place where dreams could become real. 

This was a place he had been to many times before, at the edge of the jungle where the land met the sky. It was believed to be a place at the juncture of two worlds -- land and sky, earth and air. The delineation between the two was as sharp and unambiguous as that found on the earliest nautical maps, where the sea at the edges of the world fell away into an eternal abyss, marked only by the legend, _Here there be monsters_. 

He watched in silent awe as one of the stars detached from that great backdrop of living, breathing night and descended slowly to meet him. He lifted his face to it, feeling somewhat like a child trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue. That was the feeling he got from this place, that kind of innocence, and the thought made him smile slightly. Perhaps, after everything, it wasn't too late for him after all. 

_I dreamed of you_ , he said, and the fallen star shimmered in fond amusement, hovering like a 2,000-watt speck of brilliance in front of his face. Its light pushed back the darkness that pressed around him, and for a moment he thought he saw another, more familiar, form encased within it. 

_Of course you did_ , it said to him, and there was laughter in its voice. 

The comment brought with it a stab of remembered pain, and he looked away, unable to stand the brightness any longer. Around him, darkness and light mingled in dreamy ecstasy, and he thought about how well they complemented each other, how one could not exist without the other. 

_But did I do right_? he whispered. 

There was silence for a long while then, and he froze, waiting for the words that would condemn him. It was no more than he deserved, he knew, but even so, the pain cut deep. 

And then, with a soft flicker of starfire, the light replied. _Go find out_. 

There was no condemnation in the words, for which he was grateful. Only sorrow, and loss, and even that was chased through by an echo of quiet joy. Because he was here, finally, in this place that was end and beginning both. 

_Yes_ , he said, and he smiled, feeling an echo of that joy shiver through him. He lifted his face to the night once again, letting his eyes sweep over that glorious vista of star-filled sky, and knew that he had at last come home. 

And then there was nothing but the light. 

* * *

End SVS2-01: Eye of the Storm by Rushlight 

Author and story notes [above](svs201eye.html#Top).


End file.
